


Spin Sorrow Into Silk

by Machiavelien



Series: Rage Rising [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man (Video Game 2018), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Black Cat - Freeform, College, Cunnilingus, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, High School, Idiots in Love, Office Blow Jobs, Oral Sex, POV Michelle Jones, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Rough Sex, Secret Identity, Shameless Smut, Smut, Spideychelle, Summer Love, Summer Romance, Tender Sex, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-06-03 16:36:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 67,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machiavelien/pseuds/Machiavelien
Summary: Back in NYC from college for the summer, MJ tries to figure out where things stand with Peter, her roommate and sometimes boyfriend. Things get complicated when she makes a new friend and Spider-Man contends with a new masked cat burglar in town.**Please pardon the plot, it's only there to distract from the fluff & smut.**





	1. Peter: Prelude I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spider-Man and Michelle spend some time together.
> 
> (This chapter takes place before Far From Home)
> 
> [ Fic playlist on Spotify! ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2eCPCNYrXTa5ByN5AvcXVt?si=yWf1hJIIS7yR80UD2jQLdg)

_You make my heart spin sorrow into silk,_  
_You make me sleep like a young child with warm milk,_  
_You held me tighter when I pushed you away,_ _  
You turn my sorrow into silk, you turn my sorrow..._

 _I'll make your heart spin sorrow into silk,_  
_I'll stay awake when you can't get to sleep,_  
_I promised myself, if I pushed you away,_  
_I'd turn your sorrow into silk, I'd turn your sorrow…_

_Chapter track:[ 'Silk’ by Giselle Rosselli](https://open.spotify.com/track/418fYKL9zrcfvpI6WnIARi?si=DwJ3omZWRpm8IQtJ-sRrqg)_

_-*-_

Peter dropped down to a seat with his legs hanging off the edge of the roof, high enough above the streets to pull his mask off for a post-patrol breather, and watched his breath fog in the crisp winter air. The city skyline glittered in the distance across from the trees and low rooftops of Queens, and the dark strip that was the East River churned as sunset painted the smoggy sky orange and purple.

His ears perked up at the sound of a man in one of the apartments below yelling angrily, followed by something breaking, his Spider-sense vaguely tingling. Hearing the furious footsteps clanging up the stairwell leading to the roof from several flights away, Peter quickly tugged his mask back on and turned around just as the door to the roof opened with a clatter.

Still catching her breath, Michelle Jones staggered onto the rooftop and froze when she saw him. Peter almost called out her name in surprise before he remembered that he was supposed to be Spider-Man at the moment. They stood rooted in place and stared at each other for a painfully long time until she took the first slow and cautious steps towards him, as if trying not to spook a wild animal. Peter was still holding his breath.

Eventually they are close enough for him to count the light freckles across the bridge of her nose, and with his mask on, he felt brave enough to look her in the eyes. The fading sunlight glinted against her brown irises like molten amber, and her soft lips parted to say something but she couldn't stop staring at Spider-Man.

Peter dropped his shoulders and drew himself to his full height, feeling naked in his tightly fitted suit. He couldn't decide what to do with his hands and settled on resting one on his hip, then switching hands twice and wanting to throw himself off the building.

“I saw you from inside, swinging up here and I…” MJ began, breaking the silence. Seemingly at a loss for words, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at her feet.

It was strange to see MJ nervous, and even stranger to consider that he was the reason for it—or at least Spider-Man was—and he would be lying if he said that it didn't send a thrill through him. “Is everything okay? I heard something break downstairs. Was that… was that your place?”

Her eyes flicked up at him. He couldn't tell if she was angry or embarrassed, but he felt like he had said the wrong thing. “Yeah. It's… whatever. Not important.”

Stepping closer, MJ peered at him intently, like she was trying to see through the mask through sheer force of will. Her hand made a movement as if she was about to put it against his cheek, but she dropped it and looked away. Peter's eyes ran along the elegant lines of her jaw and collarbone, curving down her shoulder and around her shivering form.

He swallowed thickly. “You should go inside. It's cold.”

“Do you want me to go?” Her voice was soft and lighter than usual, almost uncertain, and MJ _never_ sounded uncertain. Her breath fogged in the air as she rubbed her upper arms for warmth, and Peter clenched his fist to stop himself from reaching for her.

“I don’t want you to get too cold,” he replied tactfully, surprising himself.

“Then are you going to warm me up, Spider-Man?” MJ asked, glancing at him out of the side of her eye. Her tone had a challenging edge to it now, the sultriness giving way to a steely command that excited Peter even more. He felt his face go numb as he searched his mind for a response that was not immediately turning around and swinging away into the night in a panic.

Eventually her controlled expression gave away and she laughed, clapping her hands together as her loose brown hair shook around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, but I can actually feel how terrified you look under that mask right now. It’s radiating off of you like an anxiety cologne,” MJ said, leaning forward to pretend to sniff him while wafting the air theatrically. “Parfum de araignée! C'est magnifique!”

Peter chuckled weakly. His heartbeat was still thundering in his ears, but a warmth started filling his chest. “Yeah, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is always here to help.”

She gazed at him thoughtfully with her arms crossed and her head tilted, as if she was inspecting a curious piece on display at a museum instead of a masked vigilante in red and blue spandex. He couldn’t stop staring back either; her dark eyes were piercing beneath thick lashes as she squinted suspiciously at him, and the tip of her nose and the apples of her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold. He wanted to cup her face in his hands, just so his suit’s AI Karen could warm her up through his gloves—and definitely _not_ for any other reason.

“But you should really go inside before you freeze your butt off,” he said, trying to sound casual.

“What do you care about my butt for?” she replied quickly, raising an eyebrow.

“Real mature, lady,” Peter shot back, grinning madly beneath his mask.

MJ mercifully let her question hang rhetorically in the air and actually did as he suggested. Yanking open the door to the stairwell, she flipped him a middle finger and headed inside without turning back. “See you around, Spidey.”

-*-

“Okay, another question for you, Spider-Dude. What does being a superhero mean to you?” MJ asked him while they were sharing a box of Krispy Kreme donuts that a grateful civilian had gifted Spider-Man. She reached across his lap to take a cruller from the far side of the box, and he held his breath when her fingers touched his gloved ones.

After their encounter on her rooftop, Peter had started meeting up with MJ sporadically after patrolling when it was on the way—and sometimes when seeing her would be only a _little_ out of the way. The mask made him feel more daring around her in a way that he couldn't imagine being as Peter Parker at school; Peter would never turn around to talk to Michelle Jones at the back of the class and risk interrupting whatever she was doing. But Spider-Man could just drop by her fire escape and she was always happy to climb out and join him.

Peter tapped his masked chin thoughtfully. “Well, I feel like I have all these extraordinary powers, so maybe I'm supposed to fix some extraordinary problem,” he began, tucking his mask up over his nose. “Like, maybe I’m meant to protect the people that institutions have failed to serve, the ones left behind. Neighborhoods that don’t get adequate or any police patrols—which is totally _insane_ —or like, communities that lack the resources to fight back against criminals who prey on them because of _exactly_ that. I guess that's just capitalism, but you know what I mean. Anyway, that's why I usually stick to the outer boroughs.”

He took a bite of his glazed donut and chewed. “So, yeah, that’s it, I guess. Just trying to help anyone I can before they slip through the cracks, or something like that?”

Putting down her donut, MJ stared at him with an unusual look he had never seen from her before, something between mild surprise and tenderness, maybe even admiration. She blinked at him a few times, unconsciously licking the sugar off her lips.

 _Is this what it feels like to be devoured by someone’s eyes?_ he wondered, but suddenly felt silly for being so presumptuous. Peter felt his face heat up anyway, and silently thanked his mask again.

“That’s good. Um, very thoughtful response,” she finally murmured, chewing lightly on her lip. “I mean, can I quote you on that?”

Peter chuckled, scratching the back of his neck shyly. “Are you interviewing Spider-Man as a journalist right now?”

“Obviously. That’s what we’ve been doing this whole time.”

“Oh? I thought we were flirting.” Peter held his breath, astonished that he had actually said it out loud, and immediately wondered if he just made a huge mistake.

But MJ just made a face at him, scrunching up her nose. “Ew, flirting with Spider-Man? You could be, like, a hundred years-old under there.”

He laughed and pretended not to notice her scooting closer to him. He was not, however, going to take her bait. Mostly not. “I'm definitely not a hundred years old.”

“I'll believe it when I see it, Spider-Grandpa.”

“Ha. Nice try,” he laughs, waving his donut at her. “Just don't forget the hyphen between Spider and Man when you print our interview.”

-*-

Before long, Peter started going to her after especially tough nights, like a fatal fire or some other tragedy that had no villain to defeat, just casualties to minimize. After those kinds of patrols, Peter would just hang his masked head and stare at his useless hands, and MJ would sit with him in companionable silence, pressing her upper arm against his as they sat on her fire escape and looked out towards the Manhattan skyline.

“Thanks,” Peter said softly.

“For what?”

It would be too much, he decided, to tell her what she really meant to him, to admit to MJ that seeing her was what he looked forward to the most every day, even if it was from behind Spider-Man’s mask.

He could bench press a car, climb up the side of a wall, and fight twenty guys to a standstill. He could swing across chasms thirty stories deep, and even feel a bullet coming his way and move fast enough to get clear. But something in her made him gentle, made him shy. Made him strong. Made him happy to be alive. Maybe that’s what it really came down to—she made him whole.*

But he didn't want her to feel the weight of all that, the heaviness of his feelings, so instead he told her, “It’s nice having someone to come to, when things get hard.”

MJ side-eyed him with a raised eyebrow, nostrils flaring with suspicion, but after a moment of eyeing him, burst out laughing. He cocked his head to the side in confusion, which only made her laugh harder—cackle, even—and shake against him.

“What’s so funny?”

“I guess I should be flattered? Not every girl can claim she's the star of an Avenger's spank bank.”

“Oh, oh! You’re a pervert, lady!” Peter turned away with his arms crossed, pretending to be affronted. “I’m not that kind of spider, you know. You gotta take me out to a nice dinner first, like a freshly-webbed fly or moth, followed by maybe a swing through midtown or...”

MJ leaned in close and tentatively placed a hand on his arm to get his attention, even though she was all that Peter could focus on at the moment. He flexed, making her smirk, and she slowly ran her fingers along the raised webbing pattern across his chest, leaving a trail of goosebumps on his skin in the wake of her touch. His heartbeat was hammering in his ears, and his suit suddenly felt too hot and constricting.

“Take it off,” she whispered, fingering the edge of his mask.

He pressed his hand against hers to still her fidgeting, and took a deep breath. “I—I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Fine,” she said sternly, pushing his hand away and stood up, taking a step back. His heart dropped and he reached for her before he could stop himself, but she turned and began climbing back inside her bedroom window, slipping beyond his grasp.

He watched her from the fire escape, feeling sorry for himself, until MJ unexpectedly reached out and tugged at his wrist to beckon him inside. This was a bad idea, he thought as his legs ignored him and stumbled into her bedroom.

“Fine, you can leave it on. Gimp masks aren’t really my thing, but I’m not here to kinkshame anyone.”

“What?”

Looking back at him over her shoulder, MJ began to shrug off her flannel. “I guess it’s better than fucking with socks on. Do you have Spidey socks? Actually, don’t tell me. Stay mysterious.”

Standing up, Peter caught himself staring at the lace of her bra peeking above her tank and shook his head. “Would you really just sleep with a stranger without seeing his face first?” he asked her incredulously while a part of his brain screamed at him to shut up and just go with it.

She crossed behind him and snaked her long arms around his waist, pressing her body against his back. “No,” she murmured into his neck. “I wouldn’t.”

He turned around and placed his hands lightly on her bare shoulders, feeling her heat radiate through the fabric of his suit as she gazed at him with heavy lidded eyes. He couldn’t think straight and he ached to tell her the truth—but he also couldn’t just suck her into his messy double-life without her consent.

And what if she found the truth disappointing? Overwhelming? Or maybe she already knew? She must, but how long were they going to play this game? And what if maybe, for as clever and observant as she was, MJ might not actually know his secret after all?

She looked expectantly at him, her face unusually vulnerable, and he squeezed her reassuringly.

“How about the next best thing…?”

With her long legs wrapped around his torso, Peter easily lifted MJ up with just one arm around her waist.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” he whispered into her ear.

She bit her lip and nodded. “Do it.”

When they took their first leap off the building, she squealed and tightened her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his chest. He could feel both of their hearts thundering beneath their rib cages, the vibration rippling through their bodies as they held each other.

As she got used to the speed and momentum of each swing, MJ started laughing and gasping, pointing out various landmarks to him as they soared across Manhattan together.

The blowing wind and the smell of her hair and the sounds she was making filled his head; he felt more alive than he had ever felt before—he was free and invincible with MJ by his side. That was the moment when Peter decided that there was no greater feeling in any universe than being the reason Michelle Jones was screaming and panting so furiously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man #53 Vol. 2
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	2. Peter: Prelude II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Michelle spend some time together.
> 
> (Takes place after Far From Home, but ignores the post- credits scene / assumes it got resolved and Spider-Man's identity remains unknown)
> 
> **Rating change from M to E! I didn't realize how quickly this fic got raunchy!**
> 
> **Thank you for all the comments and kudos you guys! Got a lot more in store for you...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: ["Screwed" by Janelle Monáe, feat. Zoë Kravitz](https://open.spotify.com/track/13EDmp0hUoQX8DGtxuClxR?si=WeZ0AsMJR02QbcP6HTZ8GA)

“I really thought Liz knew you were Spider-Man, since you guys were going to Homecoming together after Washington DC. I figured you told her sometime after, you know, saving her life,” said MJ as she flicked through their movie options on Netflix. “That's a pretty good pick up move, by the way.”

Peter chuckled nervously, thinking of the Vulture's watery eyes staring piercingly into him when he'd dropped them off for the dance, and the barrel of his gun resting against the carseat, pointed directly at Peter’s face. “Nope. Only Ned and Tony knew then.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “And me, dork. I totally figured you out by then. You ain’t slick, Spidey.”

Then, as usual, MJ fell asleep halfway through the movie while leaning against Peter, her hair tickling his neck. So, he sat as still as he could with his back ramrod straight, afraid to wake her up and break the spell, and he savored the overwhelming sensation of her warm shoulder pressed against him and the smell of her hair engulfing his senses. 

When MJ opened her eyes at the end of the movie, she called him a loser for staring at her, and he said something about being too engrossed with watching how one person could snore so loudly. Then she elbowed him and rolled off of him to put another movie on, and eventually started nodding off again with her head on his shoulder.

Even though MJ had already told him it was obvious that he was Spider-Man and that she had figured it out a long time ago, Peter still wanted to formally, officially tell her, because she deserves that much. It was important to him to do this, to actively choose to let her into this part of his life. Besides, she had always been there, on the edge of his life, protecting his secrets. 

So, he went to her with his mask in his hands. _Just stick the landing, Parker_ , he reminded himself.

“MJ, I'm Peter-Man. I mean, Spider-Parker! No, fuck!”

MJ snickered, and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked really cute when she was trying not to laugh. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “MJ, I’m Spider-Man.”

She squinted at him for a long time, and finally declared, “I knew that suit had to be padded.”

He let out a breath of relief. Sometimes it felt like nothing had changed between them, which was a good thing, and other times it felt the same but also _more._ “No, it's not! It's actually unbearably form-fitting. Trust me, this is all Peter,” he said, gesturing at himself and unsubtly flexing as he did. MJ smiled and bit her thumbnail, trying to suppress another laugh. 

“You’ll have to show me then,” she said as she ran her fingers through his hair, watching the way his brown curls fell back down over his forehead. 

-*-

Someone had spiked the punch, and Peter decided to say fuck to caution and enjoy his senior prom night. It would take a few more cups of this disgusting concoction to get him as buzzed as anyone else, but he was here, he was alive, and he was _with MJ_ —albeit only as friends since Ned had gone with Betty, turning their trio into a duo. Now all Peter wanted was a little liquid courage to dull the anxiety buzzing in his head so he could enjoy his night with MJ.

He spotted her in the middle of the dance floor with some Decathlon teammates, and she was actually dancing. Her lean form writhed and moved to the music in the middle of the crowd, shaking her thick curly hair. Peter pushed his way through to her. “MJ—”

With a dreamy smile, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close, the front of their bodies touching. Her eyes were glassy and and her arms heavy and sluggish. 

“Are you drunk?”

“Maybe. A little. Here to take me home, nerd?”

Peter didn't know what came over him, but he replied in a low voice in her ear, “Yes. I'd like to.” He swore that he felt her shiver against him.

“Good. Will you make pizza bites for me?” she slurred slightly, still hanging off of him.

Peter grinned. “Of course. I'll even toast them instead of using the microwave so they're extra crispy and fancy.”

“My hero,” she murmured, closing her eyes as they swayed together.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you could kiss like _that_? I mean .. wow.”

Only MJ could sound both sultry and accusatory at the same time, Peter thought excitedly. Her dark amber eyes bore into him while the wind blew her hair around, her wet lips panting and swollen from kissing _him_. 

“I… I didn’t know I could!” 

He desperately wanted to taste her mouth again. Their previous kisses had been tentative, testing, shy; now he was kissing her with something to prove.

The heady rush of their kisses almost made Peter forget that they were precariously balanced on a window ledge outside of their prom venue, flanked by two grand Ionic columns and trying not to be seen while MJ's prom dress whipped in the wind. He was still wearing his rental tux and teetering by his slippery patent leather rental shoes, but his hands held her hips steady.

“Well, let's make sure it wasn't a fluke or just beginner's luck,” she said breathlessly, pulling him in for another kiss. “Hey. Why are you blushing, dork? Or is that acne?”

Peter laughed and kissed her back.* 

-*-

His hand ran down to the small of her back to bring her hips close to his while the other nervously caressed her under her shirt. MJ was so beautiful. Peter had no idea what he was doing. They kissed long and deep. Soon, his fingers gently curled beneath her top and slowly brought it up and over her head to reveal a black, lacy bra. 

Peter had never taken off a girl’s clothes before, and his teenage hormones were stirring up the storm of sensations that were already overwhelming him. Had MJ gotten a sexy bra just for him? _No, she definitely got it for herself_ , he mused, but she was letting him, Peter Parker, see it! And maybe touch it? Take it off? His heart was thumping so hard in his chest and his erection, to his sudden realization, had begun to twitch and press through his jeans against her exposed stomach. 

Peter finally broke away from staring at the swell of her breasts that peaked above the black lace, and looked up at her face sheepishly with an apology on the tip of his tongue. But MJ just gave him that smug side-smile of hers that came out whenever she won an argument, and reached behind to unclasp her bra.

He’ll never forget the soft jiggle of her cleavage as the straps fall slack over her shoulders, and how she shrugged forward to lower the cups down slowly, revealing the rest of her small, perky, and perfectly-shaped breasts. He couldn’t breath. Her dusky nipples were hard peaks and begging to be tasted. 

But before Peter could get more than a taste, he looked at the clock and realized with a frustrated groan that they had to get back to Midtown High by the time that graduation rehearsal started.

“Just so you know, loser,” said MJ as she pulled her shirt back over her head, “My underwear matches.”

-*-

“This is really happening,” Peter gasped between kisses.

MJ nodded, undoing the button and fly of her jeans. “We're really doing this.” 

He fumbled as he reached down the front of her jeans and caught his watch against the open zipper, but Peter eventually managed to slip his fingers into her underwear and started stroking her directly. MJ was already wet, so he hoped that meant he was doing it right.

It was the end of another school year, their senior year, and they were the last ones to leave after their very last Decathlon meeting ever, hanging behind to re-shelve the study binders.

It had started when MJ reached up to the top shelf, lifting the hem of her cropped t-shirt and exposing a strip of toned, brown skin. Peter swallowed thickly and tried to look away, but she turned and caught him looking, laughing when he startled and dropped the books he was organizing. 

“Perv,” MJ grinned.

“What? They were heavy books.”

MJ raised her eyebrows. “Right. Whatever you say, Spidey.” She then proceeded to trace her fingers lazily along the muscles of his forearms, making the hairs all over his body stand on end. 

And now he had his hand down her pants in the middle of an unlocked classroom.

“I… ” MJ panted. “I want to feel your fingers inside me, Peter.”

He nodded eagerly and leaned in to deepen their kiss.

-*-

The night before MJ would be leaving for Cambridge, she and Peter were in his bedroom sharing pints of ice cream and watching something on Netflix.

Taking up the entire length of his bottom bunk bed, MJ extended her legs across Peter's lap, resting them just past his crotch, and casually folded her arms behind her head. He caught the hint of a smirk curling at the corners of her lips before she could school her face back into her signature deadpan, and made up his mind to give MJ a dose of her own medicine. 

After Peter had made her cum in a classroom after their last Decathlon meeting, they had mutually agreed to stop fooling around with each other for the rest of the summer. With their starting at different colleges in a few weeks and MJ moving hundreds of miles away for Harvard, they acknowledged that there was no point in pursuing anything. But that somehow became a game of who could get the other to cave in first, and he wasn't sure who was winning. It was probably her.

Peter’s began massaging the arch of her foot, but kept his eyes fixed on the movie playing on the computer screen. He tried not to listen to the soft pleased sounds coming from her as his fingers worked their way up her ankle to her long, smooth calves, and he was definitely ignoring the beads of sweat collecting along her collarbone. Peter shifted closer to her until their thighs were touching and she was almost sitting on his lap.

He let his gaze wander to her lips, wet and sugared from the ice cream, which had been left forgotten and half melted on the nightstand. Then his eyes dropped to the white tank top clinging to her sweaty skin, that dark and tanned expanse that flushed in the August heat, and Peter startled with the sudden realization that she wasn't wearing a bra. He gulped and closed his eyes.

It had been years since his enhanced senses overwhelmed him like they had those first few weeks after he was bitten, but even the smell of her made Peter's mind feel sluggish and intoxicated. He couldn't get enough of her, wishing he could spend forever nuzzled into her neck, tasting her skin. 

The mattress creaked from the weight of both of them gathered to one side, but instead of jarring them out of the moment, MJ tucked her hair behind her ear and tilted her chin towards him. But just before their lips could touch, she froze and stood up suddenly, eyes wide in panic, and quickly left the room, leaving Peter bewildered and crestfallen. 

Had he misread the situation? Did he just screw everything up between them? He wasn't sure what he had done wrong, but panic was creeping up his stomach while MJ took her time in the bathroom.

She finally emerged after what felt like an excruciating eternity to Peter and tossed a square foiled package at his chest. He caught it out of the air before realizing what it was, and dropped it when he did.

“One last hurrah? Or one for the road, whatever,” MJ shrugged, feigning indifference.

“Last one? Where was I for the rest?” he chuckled lightly.

“First and last,” she mumbled. “For me, at least.”

“First for me, too.” Peter looked at her meaningfully, fiddling nervously with the unopened condom in his hands. He stilled when she put her hand over his, its familiar weight and warmth both reassuring and exhilarating, and Peter realized that there was no one else he trusted more than MJ and no one else he'd rather share this with than her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man #143 Vol. 1 (a little homage to the airport 😘 scene!)


	3. Peter: Prelude III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and MJ deal with being apart for college during their freshman year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [“Uninvited” by Mallrat](https://open.spotify.com/track/0EDlULDWMq7mUhj28tvkol?si=SAIWR0RsQnaV7y9n7__Wew)
> 
> * The poem MJ recites are lyrics from [“Vinyl” by Angel Haze](https://open.spotify.com/artist/2cyyGl4qnHZL0o16t0fpJl)

Turning down MIT to stay in New York and continue being Spider-Man was an easy choice in the end, especially when he thought about his responsibilities and all the people that needed him. If anything, Peter felt more conflicted about how much he _didn’t_ feel conflicted than over the decision itself. 

He thought the hardest part would be breaking the news to Ned, but as usual, he could count on his guy-in-the-chair.

“Bro, I already declined,” Ned had scoffed, throwing an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Team Spidey all the way!”

When Peter asked him if he was sure he wanted to give up such a prestigious program, Ned had waved him off. "That's what grad school is for. Undergrad is when nerds like us can finally let loose and peak! This is our city, our time! Besides, can you imagine your friendly neighborhood Spiderman in _Boston_? Gross," Ned shuddered.

Peaking turned out to involve much of what they did in high school, only at odder hours and without Aunt May reminding them of curfews and bedtimes: video game tournaments, Settlers of Catan, movie nights, and, of course, Spidey-patrols. 

“Nerds gone wild,” MJ declared when Peter texted her during a Firefly marathon to tell her that they—both he and Ned—missed her.

Actually, the hardest part about turning down MIT was knowing MJ would be at Harvard while he was at Empire State and that he wouldn’t be able to see her all the time anymore. They tried to keep in touch at the beginning of college with sporadic calls and texts, but those slowly dwindled to occasionally forwarding funny memes to each other, which, Peter reminded himself, was bound to happen as they got caught up in their respective campus lives. 

But an ache still bloomed in his chest whenever he thought about MJ and what could have been, haunted by every opportunity he didn’t take. 

Peter thought about the night they had snuck out from the hotel in Prague during their European field trip in highschool to take a walk together along the Charles Bridge. Everything had been impossibly soft and quiet around them, from the sweet night air to the hazy glow of street lamps. He thought of the way the thin fabric of her floral dress had clung to her hips and fluttered in the night breeze, the way his fingers itched to catch hers as their hands swung past each other's. The way her cheeks glowed when she smiled at him.

Peter sighed. He should have kissed her that night.

-*-

Tugging him by the sleeve of his coat, MJ led them down a side street near her apartment and ducked into a dark corner where the light of the nearest street lamp didn't reach. Peter was walking her home from dinner at Aunt May's, and they were taking their time looping the few blocks between their buildings. He knew she was in no hurry to get home; Christmas time was one of her father's big drinking holidays.

Her breath fogged in the frigid air as she reached down to unzip his fly, her eyes never leaving his. Tonight was the first time they had seen each other since she'd left for Harvard, but when MJ wrapped her fingers around his hardening cock and began stroking him, he knew that he would fall back into their old habits with no resistance if she wanted him to. 

They had agreed that long distance wasn't realistic for them given his nightly web-crawler activities and her pursuing a fourth-year masters degree. Besides, they were supposed to experience new things and meet new people in college. But all those reasons meant nothing to him now that he was with her again.

Peter hissed when MJ eventually pulled his hard-on out of his pants, exposing him to the freezing cold air. She apologized by quickly kneeling and wrapping her hot mouth around the tip and taking his entire length into her throat in one long thrust. 

He groaned at the intense wet heat of her mouth replacing the icy coldness each time she sucked and bobbed her head. At one point a car drove nearby, startling him to stillness, but MJ didn’t even stop to look. 

Struggling to focus on something else—anything else—so he could last longer, Peter concentrated on the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance, then his eyes darted to the colorful strings of Christmas lights twinkling in neighboring windows, to the snowflakes in her dark hair… Their eyes made contact when she glanced up, desire burning unmistakably in her gaze and her soft pink lips stretched around his thickness. _So much for lasting,_ he thought idly. 

With another groan, he felt his release rush out of him like a tidal wave he couldn't hold back anymore, ecstasy rippling through his entire body, and he finished in her mouth before he had time to consider pulling out. She gagged a little, but swallowed all of it.

“Hey, uh… do you-do you want to come to a new years party with me?” He asked breathlessly as he took her hand to help MJ get back on her feet.

“Someone actually invited you to a party?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her coat sleeve.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Peter deadpanned as he zipped himself up. “Actually, it was this girl in my orgo lecture. Someone she knows from high school is throwing the party.”

MJ's face is mostly obscured in shadow but he could sense her judgement before she even said anything. “You know, Parker, it's kind of a dick move to bring a date on another date with someone else.”

“It's not a date.”

“Which one's not a date? Actually, you know what? It doesn't matter. I already have plans that night anyway.”

“You have New Year's Eve plans?”

MJ nodded, checking her phone. “Okay, I've got to get back inside before my dad finishes another Colt 45 and accidentally drowns himself in the shower or something. See you around, loser.”

-*-

Loud bass music blared from scratchy speakers as Peter squeezed his way through the writhing mass of teenagers and red Solo cups. He scanned the crowd for any sign of Gwen's blonde head, but when he came up short, he continued to wedge himself through to the next open area in the grand townhouse.

If he felt out of place among all the Upper Eastside prep school kids, he tried not to show it, hunching his shoulders so he could pass by unnoticed. Unlike Flash's house parties out in the suburbs that were usually attended by a mix of students from the three New York science and technology magnet schools, the partygoers here looked like they came straight out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue, from the sockless boat shoes to the bored girls carrying the same designer handbag.

They not-so-discreetly eyed Peter’s worn out flannel and old sneakers, and one of the guys approached him. “Hey, are you Harry’s dealer? Could I get a gram of weed, fifty bucks right?”

Peter shook his head and hurried past, texting Gwen. She responds immediately. _At the back of the house, by the game room!_

He hadn’t thought this through. He hated parties. He was only good with strangers when they were _hostile_ , and he could web them up as Spider-Man. Not as socially awkward Peter Parker, stranded among an insular network of prep schoolers who all seemed to know each other and could immediately tell he didn’t belong. Gwen would be the only person he knew here; he didn’t even have Ned since he was on vacation with his family in Hawaii (even though it was Ned who had urged Peter to make new friends, so he wouldn’t get lonely when Ned got back together with Betty Brant as he usually did every month or two). 

When he got to the second floor, Peter stood on his toes to scan the room for any familiar faces.

Sitting upright on a leather Chesterfield sofa was MJ, her long legs crossed as she talked to a guy that Peter decided he loathed on sight. The guy was sprawled across the seat with his arm around her shoulders, pressing into MJ like he owned the place. _He must be the host_ , Peter thought with irritation. 

She laughed behind her hand at something he said, and the way she threw back her head next made Peter feel like he was watching a stranger. MJ was wearing her usual leather jacket and, as she called them, her ball-stomper doc martens, but everything else was different: her makeup was dark and smoky, her hair down and loose around her shoulders, and something glossy on her lips kept pulling Peter's attention to how soft and full they looked. 

The guy suddenly put his hand on her knee and squeezed, slowly making his way up her thigh as he leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Peter could sense the imperceptible tension in MJ and the way her shoulders stiffened, but she didn't move away or try to stop his roaming hand. What was she doing?

None of it made any sense to Peter. Not that he thought MJ was waiting around for him; he just imagined that if she moved on it would be with someone more cultured, smarter, cooler—not this walking embodiment of privilege and basically everything she stood against. 

His Spider-sense prickled again, but he ignored it as his legs started their inevitable march towards the couch. _Don't do something stupid, don't do something stupid, don't do something stupid!_

“What does a guy need to do to get a drink around here?” Peter declared when he stopped right in front of them, wincing at the crack in his voice. “Oh, hey! Didn’t see you there, MJ. So weird.”

MJ glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know me, nothing I like more than ringing in the new year with a room full of strangers,” Peter said, shrugging. 

“The keg is in the kitchen, kid. I’m sure an adult can help you out with it if you’ve never seen one before,” said the host, puffing his chest out a little and laughing at his own joke. He was even wearing an ESU sweater, _great_. 

Peter ignored him and peered imploringly at MJ instead, gesturing upstairs away from drunken teenagers sloppily playing beer-pong. He'd trade this mess for a single moment of soaring over the city in a heartbeat; everything was simpler from up above, the city laid out in neat grids and pulsing lights. “Can I talk to you in private? Just for a minute?”

MJ flashed an apologetic look at the guy as she got up, which annoyed Peter more than it should, but the irritation on the guy's face almost soothed Peter's rage. “Just let me know if you need me to get rid of this kid, babe,” Peter could hear him whisper smugly in MJ’s ear as he kept his grip tightly on her arm. 

“Maybe, if you make it worth my while,” she replied huskily as she stood up, and Peter instantly regretted using his Spider-hearing to eavesdrop on them.

“Sorry if I was interrupting your date with Prince Charming over there,” Peter said, trying to sound nonchalant but landing somewhere between accusatory and bitter. 

MJ raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything, letting the uncomfortable silence grow into a palpable presence between them. A cold draft carried in cigarette smoke from the back porch as people jostled and cut through them, and someone splashed their drink on Peter’s sneakers.

He scratched at the back of his neck, avoiding MJ’s gaze. What did she see in that guy? Did she like his cocky attitude, his shamelessness, the way he took physical charge? Maybe that's why MJ preferred Spider-Man; he was confident and bold and exciting, not the nervous, self-doubting wreck that was Peter Parker. 

“Are you doing this because of Gwen?” he finally blurted out. 

She scowled and he immediately knew he had said the wrong thing. But instead of backing down and apologizing, he found himself standing taller and getting closer into MJ’s space, resting his arm on the wall behind her. Glancing away from him, she kicked at the fraying corner of a beer-soaked rug. “Peter, this doesn't have anything to do with you or Gwen.”

“Oh. Okay,” he replied, unsure of what else to say as a prickling heat crept up his neck.

Why had he asked to speak with her in private? This was all a huge mistake, and he didn't even want to be at a party tonight. But he found it impossibly difficult to keep his head with MJ; she looked so beautiful when she was angry, and Peter was perversely thrilled that, at least for the moment, he had her full, blazing attention. “It's just—you're so... but him? Really? _That_ guy?”

MJ crossed her arms. "Are we really doing this right now?" 

"No," he answered, hanging his head. "I... Just be careful, alright? And don't drink anything from strangers, or leave your drink unattended—"

She snorted, covering her mouth in surprise. "That's sweet, Parker, but don't worry. I can handle Harry Osborn. I know how to get out of situations I don't want to be in."

Peter wanted to tell her that there were plenty of things to worry about and that he saw them every night around campus while on patrol, but he didn't want to dig himself any deeper. He needed to get back to finding Gwen and, despite what his instincts were screaming at him, to let MJ get back to whatever she was doing. "Yeah, okay, you're right. I'm sorry, I don't want to ruin your night. Just forget I said anything."

She rested a hand lightly against his shoulder and pursed her lips. “For the record, this possessive male bullshit would normally annoy the crap out of me,” she said. “But coming from you, it's a little funny.”

Peter pouted, crossing and uncrossing his arms as he fought the urge to flex. As much as he did not want her to be angry with him, her pity was definitely worse.

“Funny and cute,” she clarified and tilted her chin up to look down at him. “Because I'm still taller than you.”

He sighed in relief. “You're really not angry with me?” he asked, eyes wide and hopeful. 

"Hey, Peter!" came a voice from below. He could see a pretty blonde waving at him from the foot of the stairs.

Peter turned his attention back to MJ, her eyebrows arched in that way that always made him squirm. "That's Gwen, the girl who invited me to this party."

"An answer to a question I never asked," MJ mused as she backed away from him and turned when she reached the staircase. "Catch you around, Parker. And be careful of who pours your drink,” she said, turning back one last time. “Don't want someone taking advantage of a pretty boy like you."

She ignored Gwen as they passed on the stairs, quickly making her way back to the damned couch. _That could have gone better_ , he thought with dismay.

Peter deflated. He was really screwing everything up today. "Sorry, it's just she..." he trailed off, waving vaguely to where MJ and the guy had been sitting, but neither of them were there now. Peter had to put so much effort into stopping himself from speculating on where they'd gone that he was sweating. What a disaster.

“Peter? Are you okay?” Gwen’s blue eyes peered at him with concern. 

He threw a final glance in the direction he last saw MJ, and felt his stomach knot involuntarily. “Uh, yeah. I'm fine. Thanks for asking, Gwen.”

She smiled and took his hand to lead him to the living room where everyone was gathering. “Okay. Come watch the ball drop with me.”

Peter texted MJ after the party to apologize again, but the message went unread for the next hour, and then the hour after that, and was still unread when he checked his phone right before heading out on patrol the next day. Despite stopping two muggings and chasing down a thief, Peter's head was still back at that damn party; wondering where MJ was now, what she was doing, and if she was ignoring him.

-*-

A woman down the street from where Peter was waiting for the bus was wearing a maroon trench coat that reminded him of MJ's favorite, the one she called her Carmen Sandiego coat. He adjusted his grip on his umbrella, and something cheesy about April showers and MJ flowers crossed his mind. She would probably call him a nerd and tell him his rhyme didn’t make any sense.

He missed her. He hadn't seen her since she walked out on him on New Year's Eve but it felt like he has been missing MJ for much longer, maybe since before the summer when they were still just friends. _Just_ friends sounded wrong. He felt like he meant more to her back then than whatever he became to her when they started kissing last summer.

She did eventually start responding to his texts again a few weeks after the night of the party as if nothing had happened, and just like that, they were back to being long distance friends. It wasn't the same but he'd take it. Peter figured that MJ had no incentive to flirt with him if they weren't playing their summertime game and she couldn't watch him get riled up. That didn't stop him from occasionally texting her something a little more than strictly platonic and adding extra smileys for emphasis:

_Can't wait to see you again =) =) =)_

_This is Peter btw_

_=)_

He knew they weren’t exclusive or even really together, but it still rankled to think about her going out with other people, much less see it. But Peter also knew he wasn’t entitled to feel that way; it was like Brad Davis all over again. He needed to get over that ugly possessive feeling if he wanted to fix his relationship with MJ.

She was everything Peter could never be without his powers from the spider bite and the suit: strong, confident, unaffected, _cool_ . Alright, maybe he still wasn't quite MJ-level of cool even as Spider-Man, but he was a little bit closer to it, especially the more time he spent with her. _Cool by osmosis_ , he grinned to himself. He'd have to remember to say that to her the next chance he got.

As if thinking about her caused her to materialize out of thin air, the woman in the trench coat turned and it was _her_. Peter shook his head, trying to clear the hallucination, but there she remained: Michelle Jones, in the flesh and walking away from him as she crossed the street. 

Pushing against the pedestrian foot traffic, Peter jogged up to her, calling her name and earning annoyed glares from other commuters as he pushed past. She turned to face him and all the air went out of his chest.

MJ was just as pretty as he remembered her—maybe more so, now that she was physically here in front of him. Her hair was longer and her dark brown eyes peered at him impassively from beneath her long lashes. There was also something sharper, more mature about her that he couldn't quite pinpoint; maybe she just seemed sadder.

“Hey! Hi. MJ. It's good to see you,” Peter panted, pretending to be out of breath. “I didn't know you'd be in town.” He winced conciliatorily, he hadn't meant for it to sound like an accusation.

“Well, I am,” MJ replied matter-of-factly, offering nothing else and letting the silence linger between them. 

“What are you here for?” Peter blurted out. A part of him felt wounded that MJ hadn't told him that she was back in the city, but an even larger part of him was giddy just to see her.

“An interview. For a summer internship.” She tugged at the collar of her button-down shirt, betraying some of her nervousness.

“What happened to spending the summer at Harvard, for journalism classes?” 

MJ shrugged, hugging her arms. “Their investigative journalism program is kind of non-existent for undergrads. And Boston’s depressing as fuck,” she mumbled, tucking her hair behind her ear. “So I figured I could look at some options in New York.”

“That's awesome,” Peter said, nodding and bouncing on his toes. “Not the depressing Boston part. I mean, that you're doing what you want to do, with the journalism thing.”

A smile almost curled up her lips—not that he was watching her lips—but she held her face mostly neutral when she added, “Plus, the Red Sox suck."

Peter laughed. “Hah. Yeah, they've got nothing on my Mets.”

“You mean ‘a bunch of loveable losers who hit the occasional home run by accident'?”

“Just like me,” he smiled wryly, pleasantly surprised that MJ still remembered something he had said years ago. It had been a particularly difficult anniversary of Uncle Ben's death, and to distract him MJ had convinced Peter to recount his favorite memories of his uncle. 

So, he'd told her about the times Uncle Ben took him to Mets games at Shea Stadium before it was torn down, and how he would complain about the then-new Citi Field but still pool together with some coworkers to buy season tickets, a rare luxury in the Parker household. MJ had listened to Peter patiently until he tired himself out and fell asleep with her still on the phone.

"I thought you didn't care about baseball?" Peter teased back.

"I don't,” MJ replied coolly. "But I'll always be loyal to my hometown team."

He grinned, unable to suppress the excitement bubbling up inside him as they resumed their familiar banter. "I knew I could always count on my hometown girl." 

Her cheeks flushed and she looked away from him again. Peter scratched the back of his neck and gazed up at her fondly. Their quips and jokes, the unspoken game of not-flirting—it all drove him crazy when they were dancing around each other in high school, but he'd missed it so desperately over the last year while she was hundreds of miles away at Harvard. 

But now they were right back into it; a little awkward but also familiar, feeling each other out again and delineating the contours of their relationship.

"Hey," Peter said softly, taking a step closer. "For real, though. I'm glad you're back in New York."

MJ was definitely smiling a little bit at him now, even though she kept looking away nervously when he caught her eye. “Thanks. But I haven't gotten the internship yet.”

“But you will. They'd be idiots not to snag you while they have the chance.” MJ scoffed at him, but he kept beaming at her.

After another losing Mets season, Uncle Ben once said to Peter, “You can't always win—that's the way life works. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how hard you try, you lose anyway. Life is a very long season. Some you win, some you lose… And it's good to lose once in a while. It makes the winning all the sweeter. Maybe next year, okay? We'll come again and see if they win.”**

This year definitely felt like Peter's losing streak with MJ, but maybe now would be a new start and a chance for him to count a win. Peter wanted to invite her over to his dorm room and ask her to stay, to catch up, to be friends again. He wanted to make up for all the lost time, and maybe do it right this time around. 

But it all felt like wishful thinking, and like a true Mets fan, Peter didn't dare to hope. Instead, he tugged at his backpack and said, “Cool, cool. Well, good luck on your interview! See you around, MJ.”

“Yeah, see you around, Peter.”

-*-

“Excuse me, ma'am, I think you dropped this?” Peter swung down beside MJ, holding out a charcoal pencil to her like a flower stem. Barely sparing Spider-Man a glance, she took the pencil and continued sketching on a wide drawing pad, periodically erasing and blowing at the page. She was wearing a hoodie over pajamas, and the blustering wind made the rooftop colder than May should feel. 

They sat in comfortable silence as he watched her draw, the soft scratching of her pencil sending tingles throughout his body. Still concentrating on her drawing, MJ absentmindedly tucked her hair behind her ear, and Peter almost sighed audibly at the way the orange sunset illuminated her profile. This was the MJ he knew, with her intense focus and charcoal stained hands. 

Eager for her attention, Peter reclined himself along the edge of the roof in front of her, draping his arm dramatically over his head as he obstructed her view of the skyline. “Draw me like one of your French girls?”

MJ snorted but still didn't look up at him, continuing to glide her pencil across the page. Peter knew he should be patient a little longer and not interrupt her, but he had been thinking about her all day; he was finally done with patrols and had just made it to Cambridge to help her move out of the dorms this weekend.

“You're a really good poet,” he said suddenly, unable to be patient any longer. “And public speaker, to do spoken word like that. I don't think I'd be brave enough.”

MJ looked up at him, startled. “You came to my show?”

He nodded, perking up now that he finally had her attention. MJ's first spoken word performance had been during that endless month after New Year's Eve, when she wasn't speaking to him, but he'd still wanted to come up to Cambridge and support her. 

She had glowed with natural charisma in front of the microphone. Her slender arms cut through the air, punctuating syllables and verses, as she guided the audience like an orchestra conductor through her performance. Spitting each line with precision and passion, MJ was so uncompromisingly herself in exposing all her hopes and doubts, her voice strong and loud.

“Yeah, it was incredible. Intense, but real, you know? It made me think a lot about stuff I take for granted.”

She put her pencils down and peered at him over her drawing pad with an almost earnest expression. “Really? You don't think it was too all over the place, thematically?”

Peter shook his head, scooting closer to her. “It was perfect. You contain multitudes, Ms. Jones,” he declared, which made her smile wide. “And you can really throw down a sick beat.”

She turned to hide the blush creeping across her cheeks. “Did you, um, see the first part of my show?” she asked shyly, decidedly not looking at him as she turned back to her drawing and began re-shading a section that probably didn't need re-shading.

Peter shook his head. He had ended up watching her from outside, fully suited up as Spider-Man, hanging off the exterior facade of the building and peering through a window. 

“No, I'm sorry. I got caught up stopping a mugging, so I missed the beginning. Would you tell me about it? If you are okay with that.”

Her pencil paused and she seemed to consider his request for a moment. “Well, it's about a guy,” she said, fighting a smile as she continued to focus on her drawing pad. 

Grateful for his mask another countless time, Peter could feel his face fall, but he quickly berated himself for begrudging MJ for having her own crushes. He just liked being one of the few people that could get Michelle Jones to smile. He'd have to get used to sharing that honor with some Harvard guy, he supposed, and he jokingly told MJ as much.

“What? Oh. He, um, goes to ESU,” she replied, sounding a little nervous.

Harry's smug face flashed in Peter's mind, and he involuntarily clenched his fist. “Oh, that's cool. Cool, cool, cool,” Peter mumbled, unable to stop himself from nodding like a bobblehead. “I mean, it's cool that you have other friends at ESU.” He groaned internally for implying it'd be hard for MJ to make friends.

She shrugged, not taking any offense. “Actually, we knew each other from before ESU. He's a little clueless, though. But he’s cute when he’s clueless.”

Peter's heart soared and started fluttering rapidly at the same time. Was this what heartburn felt like? Acid reflux? A heart attack? She meant him, right? Definitely. Right? “So... you’re saying I’m always cute?”

 _"Boh,_ " she shrugs again, not looking up.

Before he could ruminate any longer on what she meant, MJ folded her sketchpad closed and stood up, tucking her pencil into her hair bun. “You want to come inside?” 

“Uh, you mean your room?”

“Yeah, it's freezing up here. Do you still want to hear that poem you missed?”

He knew he shouldn't, but for the life of him he couldn't remember why, and somehow Spider-Man found himself sitting on her bed, fully suited up and wondering if this all felt as surreal to her as it did to him. 

MJ sat down next to him, making the plastic mattress-cover squeak under the fitted sheet, and Peter's mind went blank. He was struck with a warm feeling of déjà vu, only this time they're in her room and Spider-Man, not Peter Parker, was sitting next to her. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath before she began to recite:*

_You remind me of a song that I can't seem to skip_  
 _Your skin's the record and the needle is my fingertips_  
 _Recollection, I touch you and I get a glimpse_  
 _Of all the same old songs and repeated skits..._  
 _Look, I know that love is always bound to change_ _  
But I promise that my records never sound the same._

_I hear inflections of forever in your high pitch_   
_Put my face to your chest, hear the bass in your breath  
And baby my whole mind shifts..._

Her voice sounded different now than when she was on stage; it was deeper but softer, with a sultry roughness that tingled up and down his spine. Peter imagined that this was how her morning voice would sound, thick and languid when she murmurs to him as her fingers glide across the taut skin over his stomach. 

He coughed. “Whoever that poem is about, is really lucky.”

She scoffed, giving him a playful shove, and exclaimed, “ _Basta!_ ” Another one of MJ’s favorite Italian phrases: Enough!

Watching MJ’s performance made Peter realize how little he really knew about MJ, and how desperately he wanted to know more about her, to know everything there was to know about her. She had poured out her deepest secrets and feelings to a room of strangers, and his heart ached when he realized how she had all these thoughts and emotions living and bursting inside of her all along.

He wanted to drown in her, to soak it all in if she would let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Peter Parker: Spider-Man Vol 2. #33
> 
> Are you guys ready for MJ's POV yet?


	4. Michelle: I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and MJ are in New York for the summer, and learn how to be partners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [“Don’t Even Smoke Weed” by Empress Of](https://open.spotify.com/track/4AcjZoKIpV3s1jWdkSGWnJ?si=47tpV0JLRpazdVaGH6m0rw)

Peter holds MJ's blazer out for her, and she slides her arms into the sleeves. He sweeps her hair out from under the collar, taking the opportunity to kiss her on the back of her exposed neck, eliciting a little squeal from her. 

She turns around to face him and adjusts the collar of his work shirt as an excuse to pull him in for another kiss, this time on the lips.

“My bigshot reporter,” he hums contentedly, resting his hand against her lower back.

“Yeah, more like big shot coffee-getter and fact-checker.” She lets go of him to straighten her pencil skirt. 

Grinning, Peter sweeps his palm down her backside over her skirt. “Here, let me help with that—”

“Oh no, that won't work again, Parker. You are not going to make me late again today,” MJ scolds, catching his hand before it can slip to her bare legs. He pouts but lets her go, and she immediately misses the warmth of his hands against her body.

When Peter first suggested moving in together “just for the summer,” MJ's first reaction was sheer panic. She couldn't imagine how they could go from long distance friends—who sometimes fooled around—to living together in close quarters for twelve weeks. But she also couldn't go back to living at home with her father, not when she had finally gotten out of that miserable apartment.

The internship she had landed with FrontLine, although a prestigious independent online newsite, still paid a typical intern stipend that barely covered basic living costs in New York. So, sharing a summer sublet with Peter Parker had made the most sense, practically and financially. MJ was also reasonably sure that she already knew about her potential roommate's craziest secrets.

“Plus, the commute would be faster than coming in from Flushing every day,” Peter had added earnestly. 

Not entirely untrue, MJ had to concede; it would be one less busride and subway connection. But she also knew he was doing this so she wouldn’t have to spend any time with her alcoholic asshole of a father. 

Back in highschool, she would stay late after school just to avoid being at home with him whenever she could, spending the afternoon studying in the library or even sitting in detention when she knew Peter would be there. In the end, she realized that he had been watching her all along, too.

But MJ also knew what would happen if she and Peter move in together.

“If we do this, we won't be _just_ roommates,” she had warned him, and added quickly when his face broke out into a bright grin, “I'm not proposing that, I'm just stating an inevitable outcome. Just so we're clear.” 

“About the inevitable outcome?” His warm brown eyes glinted mischievously. 

She ran a finger across his eyebrow, smoothing down the little hairs that stuck up funny sometimes, and nodded. “I don't know if I'm ready for anything… heavy, or like, official. But last summer was really… nice.”

Threading his fingers through hers, Peter nodded back. “Yeah, I think I can handle that.”

-*-

Taking a deep breath, MJ bites her lip to keep from screaming again, concentrating on Peter's steady panting instead. Her racing heart is ready to burst, and she squeezes her thighs around him tighter even though they're shaking. Despite the rush of blood and adrenaline spinning in her head, she tells herself that she can hold on a little longer, that all she needs to do is _breathe_. Peter keeps moving, bracing her against his strong arms, maintaining his unrelenting pace since they started.

The next time they take a wider swing between buildings, her stomach flutters at the bottom of their arc. Time feels frozen for a moment at the peak of their reverse rollercoaster ride, dangling from the end of Peter's taut web rope.

Then it all comes rushing at MJ again as they cut swiftly through the air, wind whipping through her hair as the city lights blur into streaks. Throwing out web after web, Peter hollers excitedly and continues launching them down Fifth Avenue, holding onto her tight. 

“I don't think I'll ever get used to this,” she gasps when they finally land on a solid surface, smoothing her hair down. “Every time still feels like the first time, as in just as terrifying as the first time.”

“Same,” Peter says, holding out a hand to help steady her. 

“No way, I've seen you do some crazy moves, dude. Tonight was just thwip and go, thwip and go! And I was still freaking out,” MJ says, taking his hands in hers and swinging their arms side to side. He squeezes her hands back. 

They are standing on top of the arch in Washington Square Park, looking out at the lit-up fountain and the dark outline of lush trees against the dusky sky. Park-goers below meander idly by, couples leaning into each other while a few skateboarders practice their jumps. It's June and the night is warm and feels full of potential.

“I meant just being with you,” Peter says, bringing her left hand up to his lips and pressing a kiss against her knuckles. Somehow the way his white eye lenses blink manages to make him look like a puppy. “Everything always feels new and exciting with you, MJ.”

She giggles, then coughs to clear her throat because Michelle Jones doesn't giggle, and places her hand against his covered face. “Dork. Feels weird when you kiss me through the mask.”

Rolling the red fabric up over his nose to expose the bottom half of his face, Peter grins crookedly. “How about now?”

Her eyes widen. “What if someone sees?” 

“Then you better kiss me fast.”

Without hesitation, MJ closes her eyes and presses her lips against his. For a moment she forgets that it's Peter, with the mask covering the gentle, dreamy expression he always has when they kiss, making his face unreadable.

It reminds her of her not-dates with Spider-Man back in highschool before she officially confirmed his identity: the physical tension, the excitement, and the infinitesimal—yet mortifying—chance that it was not Peter Parker under the mask after all. 

The city is pulsing around them, honking cars and sirens and rumbling construction all fading into white noise in her ears. Her hands drift down to his chest until she can feel his heartbeat against her palm, thundering and hot beneath the spandex.

It still feels impossible that they're standing here together under the open night sky; that the boy she used to sketch in the margins of her chemistry notebook also happens to be Spider-Man, and that he's looking at her right now like she's something special. 

“Thanks, tiger,” MJ whispers softly when they reluctantly part. "For the best birthday I've had... in a long time."

Hoisting her up so she can wrap her legs around his waist, Peter smiles and pulls his mask back down. “Hold on tight.”

-*-

To his credit, Peter actually gets a Stark internship for the summer. “For real this time!” he promises her, flashing his plastic Stark Industries ID card as it dangles from a lanyard around his neck. The deer-in-headlights photo of Peter Parker from orientation day is priceless, and MJ makes a mental note to get her hands on it at any cost; it might be even worse than his passport photo, which made him look like the saddest and confused puppy in the world.

Meanwhile, her internship consists mostly of fact and source checking, uploading website content, and scheduling interviews with witnesses and leads. All relatively mindless tasks that left her plenty of time and resources to research her own investigations, specifically Project Fuck-Up-OsCorp. 

MJ had been going through her father's paper records to fill out her college financial aid application when she found the letter. His office was a monument to his failures; haphazard piles of old bank statements, rejected manuscripts, and unread magazines, but the letter was the crowning jewel.

It was a formal waiver that her father had signed, irrevocably disclaiming their family's right to hold OsCorp liable in connection with her mother’s death. In exchange, her father received five hundred thousand dollars.

At first, MJ didn’t understand what OsCorp had to do with her mother’s illness or why the company would give them money. But as she pieced together documents scattered throughout the office, from insurance claim rejections to prescriptions and memos on OsCorp letterhead, it became clear that OsCorp had been conducting a series of experimental cancer treatments on her mother.

“Why the fuck would you need to sign a letter like this if it was a legitimate treatment study? What did you let them do to her?!” Michelle had screamed at her father.

He slammed a shaking fist down on the dining table in response, almost cracking the plastic top, while his other hand gripped an open liquor bottle like his life depended on it. “Hey! Don’t you run your mouth at me, you dumb—”

Seeing red, she grabbed the bottle right out of his grasp and held it out of his reach and glared at him, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. Any fear or feelings of intimidation her father had ever caused her evaporated in that instant, replaced by a cold fury and disdain for this pathetic never-was. 

Her father made a grab for her hair, but Michelle dodged and turned to hurl the heavy bottle at him.He flinched as it shattered against the wall, alcohol soaking into the old carpet.

“You. You don’t get to say a goddamn word to me ever again. You’re as good as dead to me,” she growled. “I’m done looking after your sorry drunk ass. You ruined mom but I'm not going to let you drag me down with you. Be grateful I don't light this fucking apartment on fire and leave you in it.”

It was one of the most cathartic and painful days in her life. Years of suppressed resentment, fear, and self-blame came pouring out like an angry flood that could drown and kill the both of them. The anger had made Michelle feel powerful, strong, and justified. But afterwards, as she stared at the ugly pattern of the bus seat in front of her, counting down the minutes until she would be at Harvard and away from her father’s house forever, she just felt hollow. 

Her endlessly patient, hardworking mother had been reduced to a check that her father burned through in no time; there was certainly nothing left for college tuition by the time Michelle started putting the facts together. She suspects he spent it on alcohol and women, the same way he had depleted their family’s savings while her mother was still alive, leaving them without any financial options to get medical treatment for her mother—except OsCorp.

At first, her mother had gotten better, at least for a little while, due to what MJ now suspected was the treatment’s accelerated regeneration component, but soon thereafter, she rapidly declined. Internal pains had kept her mother bedridden those last few weeks, tearing up her insides while green and scaly patches spread all over her body, some turning into rashes that caused her skin to shed. 

Far worse than the physical symptoms that ravaged her beaten body was the dramatic change in her mother's personality. She spent the last of her remaining energy on angry outbursts and rants while her dilated pupils darted around the room, looking at nothing but seeing threats in everything.

By the fall semester of her freshman year of college, MJ had collected enough evidence to confirm that OsCorp was conducting an experimental treatment program on low-income patients with pre-existing and advanced terminal illnesses. Patients who were desperate, like her mother, but had very different diagnoses, including heart disease and multiple cancers.

In the course of collecting information about other patients like her mother, MJ came across references to OsCorp’s co-founder and CEO, Norman Osborn, and his “malady,” which he obliquely referenced in multiple interviews (“It has tried to stand in the way of my doing what I love best: being a philanthropist, scientist, CEO and, most importantly of all, a father. But I won’t let it!”). 

But published interviews weren’t enough; they were all OsCorp-sanctioned, sanitized, filtered versions of Norman Osborn and his illness. A man like him would have a tight lock on what information about him got out, including hints but not actual details about this mysterious affliction. MJ would need a source on the inside that could be a direct channel to Norman. But who would have personal information about the CEO of a shady, privately-owned biochemical corporation?

-*-

“He has Retroviral Hypodysplasia,” Harry Osborn had declared dramatically, pausing for her reaction. 

“Sounds fake,” MJ said.

“Fake? How could you say that? You don’t know anything,” he huffed indignantly, evidently unused to being challenged. “ _I've_ seen him when he's relapsing into it. Trust me, it gets real bad.”

“Oh yeah? What did that look like?” Reminding herself to act nicer and be less threatening, MJ cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows in concern. “That must have been tough to watch, Harry. Did he exhibit any changes in behavior, too? And around how long after the physical symptoms?”

Fortunately, her date was so infatuated with the sound of his own voice that he didn’t seem to catch her rudeness and excitedly dove into the details, confirming symptoms in his father that were consistent with her mother's, right down to the green peeling skin and paranoid episodes. 

After she had successfully orchestrated meeting Norman Osborn’s son at his own New Year’s party through some stealthy social media research (fine—a Facebook event isn’t stealthy), MJ realized with a panic that she hadn’t planned out her next steps far enough. Although she had virtually perfected getting information through direct interrogation and intimidation, she had no idea how to make people give her information just by being _likeable_ , because she doubted she could force a rich Upper East Side trust-funded white guy to do anything he didn’t want to. 

Michelle was caught completely out of her element in trying to flirt with someone who wasn’t Peter Parker; she hadn’t spent years observing Harry from every angle to figure out what made him tick, so she had to guess. But Harry was too focused on trying to get her to hook up with him to bother with talking about anything, constantly answering her questions with innuendos that didn’t even make sense, and she didn’t know how to keep him interested without having to kiss him.

Then, of course, of all the the millions of people crammed onto Manhattan island on New Year’s Eve, it had to be Peter that walked in on her embarrassing attempt at playing a femme fatale. Alarmed that her plan was coming apart before she even started, MJ was ready to give up on the whole scheme and high tail it out of that swanky townhouse. But it turned out that seeing Peter as competition was the push Harry needed to start working for MJ’s attention.

When she returned to Harry, the young Osborn stopped pawing at her long enough to interrogate her about Peter.

“It’s complicated with us,” she said coyly. “Peter’s just, like… he’s gone through a lot, you know? I guess I have a weak spot for complicated guys. Have you gone through anything really tough?”

After that, MJ realized how exceedingly easy it is to extract information from Harry _Theopolis_ Osborn—he loved talking about himself and the world that revolves around him, and all she had to do was indulge him and keep asking him to do exactly that. He even tried to bond with her over having dead mothers. 

“I blame my father for her death. For choosing his work over us,” he declared grandly, as if he had just made some self-actualization breakthrough during therapy.

MJ pursed her lips. _I blame your father for killing my mother, too._

-*- 

Peter and MJ's sublet is a studio on the fourth floor of a walk-up with hallways that smelled like mothballs and mildew, even in the middle of the summer. Neon light from the bar across the street reflected into their room at all hours of the night, and the air-conditioner unit in their only window leaked and never went colder than ‘high fan’.

Ignoring the dead cockroaches in the kitchen cabinets and their neighbors’ muffled conversations echoing through the vents, living in this apartment is the happiest MJ has ever been since she could remember. Her early childhood was colored by her father’s alcoholism and verbal abuse towards her and her mother, then her mother’s illness. But in this closet of an apartment with Peter, MJ almost believes that she has finally found the surface of the water after a lifetime of drowning, and takes her first gulping breaths of air. 

If he heads out to patrol before she gets home, Peter will leave hot water in their electric kettle for her and a tea bag in her favorite mug, and she'll place a fresh change of post-patrol clothes for him by the shower. When she feels their box-spring mattress sink from the weight of Peter slipping into bed in the middle of the night, MJ pretends to be still asleep as her hands absentmindedly meander to his side and graze his crotch.

They spend their first weeks of living together in a frenzied haze of serial love-making and sloppy, hurried sex. In the morning, they have petulant sex before work, taking turns snoozing their cellphones’ alarms while he's still inside her. During morning staff meetings, MJ wonders idly if her co-workers can smell the sex on her, like a scarlet letter.

Sometimes, when she feels lazy and still sleepy, MJ directs Peter's mouth down between her legs, and he is always eager to oblige. Other days she wakes up first from the sunlight that slips through the blinds and crawls on top of Peter to wake him up in his favorite way. He startles at first but then his expression melts into dreamy adoration as he watches MJ rock herself on top of him. 

They also steal moments together during the day, hungrily peeling their clothes off each other in a locked conference room at Stark Tower during their lunch hour. Peter rubs a finger against her and MJ struggles to swallow her moans when he finally plunges it into her. 

She is still sore from that morning but can't help wanting more; the heat rushing down between her legs until the ache is unbearable, and she just doesn't care if she's going to have trouble walking for the rest of the day. 

When they are short on time and she has the foresight to wear a skirt that day, Peter bends MJ over any surface they can find and takes her from behind, his undone belt-buckle clinking with each of his eager thrusts into her. It makes MJ feel intoxicated and delirious, daring and sexy, like she is living someone else’s life—the life of a girl who wasn't haunted by ghosts, who won’t leave Peter Parker at the end of the summer and break his heart, even though he will insist that he’s perfectly fine. 

She knows it won't last forever, because they're just living out a fantasy for the summer, but he makes her feel too good to care about the future. Michelle is always thinking about the future, anticipates and plans for it, but Peter has a knack for making her forget about everything else.

-*-

“This city's a goddamn armpit,” MJ grumbles as she types away on her laptop at their dining table, which also tripled as their home office and cooking prep area. A heat wave engulfs the city that weekend like a muggy, humid fog that makes her brain feel sluggish, so she propped a box fan against their ailing AC unit to blow marginally-cooler stale air back in her face. 

Peter places a fresh glass of lemonade in front of her, the cold glass still sweating. “What are you working on?”

“Just a story from work. Some Chinese artifacts have been disappearing from museums all over Europe over the last year. Pretty much a fluff piece, I think, but it’s also sort of a high brow mystery. The thieves ignored much more valuable objects that were just as easy to take,” MJ explains in between gulps of lemonade. “It’s not clear what the stolen pieces have in common. They were from different regions all over China and different dynastic periods.”

“Maybe they were just amateurs grabbing at random things?” Peter suggests as he hand-washes and stacks their plates on the warped drying rack beside the kitchen sink.

She shakes her head as she scrolls through the documents FrontLine has gathered on the story so far. “I thought that too at first, but the break-ins were all super meticulous, definitely experienced professionals. As in rappelling through skylights and being in and out in two minutes.”

When he finishes drying his hands with a kitchen towel, Peter throws it over his shoulder and comes back to look at photographs of the theft sites. MJ is momentarily distracted by his forearms as he leans over her from behind, so she takes a final gulp of her lemonade before continuing, “Anyway, the Frick is opening their exhibit of imperial Chinese artwork from the Qing Dynasty at the end of next week and there are a few pieces on loan from the Château de Fontainebleau in France, which already got robbed at least twice. Could be more, but they obviously don't want it getting out.”

“You think whoever’s been stealing these artifacts is going to go after the Frick?”

“Maybe. It’s a working hypothesis.”

Peter hums in agreement and steps back from the computer to massage her shoulders. “I think you deserve a break for that breakthrough.”

Wiping the sweat off her forehead, MJ sighs. “Hardly. It's just a hunch.”

“And your hunches are usually right,” he replies happily, turning on a playlist from his phone. Peter bites this bottom lip and shakes his head to the music, eyes screwed shut as he nods along to the beat. “Come on, live a little, Em.”

Shimmying his shoulders, he cajoles MJ into getting up and dancing with him, twirling her around and again in the opposite direction. 

Although she will never admit it, even under pain of death, MJ loves Peter's embarrassing white boy dancing. He bounces along, his hair flopping over his forehead, and his jaw does that thing and she gives into him. She always gives into him.

-*-

Just after three in the morning on Saturday, Peter’s police scanner reports on cars in two separate locations getting set on fire; one just north of the Plaza hotel and the other five miles uptown by the Met museum. Before he can set off swinging toward one of the fires, MJ’s hand darts out from under the covers and grabs him by the wrist. 

“I think tonight’s the night,” she mumbles sleepily. “The Frick. Art thieves are gonna try tonight.”

Peter takes off his mask and looks down at her curiously as she rubs her eyes and sits up. 

“The car fires, they’re just diversions. They’re both equally far away from the Frick while still being in the same police precinct, to spread out the dispatched units. We need to go straight to the Frick,” she says, getting out of bed. 

“We?” Peter asks, cocking his head to the side and crossing his arms. “You mean _Spider-Man_ is going. I thought we agreed that I’d do the dangerous stuff—”

“You should wear the black suit for stealth. Don’t want Spider-Man getting caught breaking into a museum with a bunch of art thieves,” she continues, settling back on their bed with her laptop and a headset. She looks up at him, the strap of her sleep shirt falling over her shoulder. “Woman in the chair?”

Peter perks up immediately. “Oh, yeah! Gonna make sure I get in and out of there in one piece, Jones?”

MJ adjusts the headset in her ear and taps the bluetooth on, grinning at him. “I can’t guarantee the performance of my asset, only the quality of my own instructions and commands.”

“Oh, I think you're plenty familiar with how this asset performs,” he replies impishly, shimmying his hips in her direction.

“Get out of here with that,” MJ laughs and pushes him away once before pulling him back in for a quick peck on the lips. Tugging the black mask over his face, Spider-Man salutes her before diving out their window.

-*-

Peter swings onto the building adjoined to the museum just in time to catch a dark figure crawling out of a hole smashed through the glass-paned skylight. Quietly approaching while the burglar is preoccupied with gathering their loot, he throws out a webline and drops down behind the startled intruder.

MJ watches as a woman with a long, silvery hair ponytail turns to face Peter, smiling hungrily. She's wearing black goggles and a black neoprene suit with kevlar padding.

“I’ve been wondering when I’d finally get to meet you,” the burglar purrs, one hand on her cocked hip and the other holding a bounty bag over her shoulder. 

“Hi, ma’am,” Peter squeaked, stepping closer toward her with his hand extended. “I’m going to have to ask you to please surrender the goods.”

“Oh my, what happened to chivalry? Not even dinner first?” the woman asks, swaying her hips as she saunters even closer to him. Peter nearly trips over his own ankles. 

“I mean the stuff you just stole from the museum!” he huffs at the thief, who just laughs behind her gloved hand. 

“Your heart rate just shot up, like, ten times, loser,” MJ teases over the communicator, typing in the commands for Peter’s suit to record audio and video of the burglar. “Keep her talking, maybe she'll give us a clue about the other thefts.”

He sighs exasperatedly in response, but MJ feels vindicated. She was right about the European heists being related, or at least the Frick being the next target, and on this precise night! And maybe this masked burglar was the connection to link it all together.

“Look, why don't you just hand over the art and I'll pretend I didn't see you, and we all get to go home happy,” Peter says, holding out a hand towards her. “You know, seeing as it's your first time and all.”

The thief smirks at him, not taking the bait. “Nice try. But I do like the new suit, Spider. And look, we match now,” she says, turning to show off her curves in her shiny black suit.

“What? I’m not Spider-Man!” Peter insists, crossing his arms.

“If you say so. You can call me the Black Cat,” she replies, slowly reaching into for something in her bag. “Or Cat, if you’d like.”

Peter deftly catches the small white object that she tosses at him, and the Black Cat blows him a kiss. “A peace offering,” she winks, hitching her bounty higher on her shoulder. With a quick flick he shoots a web at the loot bag, but she slashes at it with her clawed gloves and shreds the webbing, continuing with her getaway. 

“Sorry, Spider. Remember, be quick as a cat!” she calls out, retracting her claws, and vaults up to a higher ledge. She sprints across the outcropping that rings the museum, and Peter shoots another web at the bag but misses as she rolls to the side and clambors up the adjacent building.

When the Black Cat reaches the edge of the roof with nowhere left to go, she turns around to face him with her hands raised in the air, breathing heavily. Mirroring her, Peter halts and holds his hands out appeasingly.

But with a feral smile and wink, she leans backwards and drops, disappearing over the edge of the rooftop. Peter's webs splutter uselessly in the air where the thief was just standing seconds before, too slow yet again. He rushes and looks over the edge, but the Black Cat is nowhere to be seen.

“Where did she go? Did she fall?!”

“Just get out of there before the cops show up!” MJ hisses into the headset. “You have about forty seconds before the first dispatch gets there.”

“But—”

“Get out of there, web-head!”

-*-

“Aren’t we supposed to turn her in?” Peter asks as he finishes making breakfast the next morning.

Technically it's lunchtime and the same Saturday, but MJ pretends that they're just a regular couple sitting down to brunch and not the kind of couple that spends their nights chasing down a professional costumed burglar while dodging the NYPD.

Pushing her stacks of books and Peter's various trinkets and prototypes aside, she clears two spots for them to eat at their dining table-home office workstation. “Well, I’m not a cop, and neither is Spider-Man. My job is to expose the truth to the public, and your job is to protect innocent people from getting hurt.”

He screws up his face in distaste as he sets the plates of eggs and toast down. “But it feels like I’m supposed to be doing something about this.”

“You are. You're helping me gather information to figure out the whole story before throwing random people in jail. Remember, this wasn’t a Spidey thing. It’s _my_ assignment. So, stop feeling so guilty, okay?” 

“I guess,” he sighs, unconvinced. “Should we at least turn this into the police?”

The object that the Black Cat threw at him turns out to be a little ceramic lucky cat, which Peter rolls deftly across his knuckles before tossing it toward the ceiling and catching it out of the air. 

MJ pauses, her forkful of eggs hovering over her plate. “You mean, should Spider-Man show up at the station and admit to having one of the stolen artifacts from a high profile break-in that could only have been committed by someone with Spider-Man’s skill and equipment?”

Peter’s shoulders drop dejectedly. “No, I guess not…”

“Also, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that thing has a tracker in it,” MJ continues, taking the figurine from him and holding it up to examine the base.

He squawks through a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “Oh crap! I didn't even think about—We have to get Karen to check—”

“Already did it last night.” She places the lucky cat down like she's about to call out checkmate. “There was indeed a tracker embedded inside. I had Karen deactivate it.”

Sighing with relief, Peter slumps back in his chair. “You're the best, MJ, thank you! Don't know what I'd do without my Woman in the Chair.” 

“Get hunted down by a sexy cat burglar who's got a thing for Spidey, apparently,” MJ teases. “By the way, is there something wrong with the stealth suit or what? You let her get away from you.”

“I got distracted,” Peter pouts.

“Uh huh. Must have been her… large claws,” MJ smirks, taking a big bite of her toast.“Do you think she has superpowers?”

Peter scratches his chin. “I don’t know. Might be her suit. It could have micro servos and implants to augment her natural agility and strength. At least, that's how I'd design a super suit for a non-superhuman so it's not bulky like the Iron Man or Rescue suits,” he says excitedly. 

Visions of herself in various super-suits dance in MJ’s mind: sleek, maybe red with a spider emblem in white? Or black and white with a hood...*

She imagines what it would be like to be out there with Spider-Man, swinging through the city alongside him as an equal instead of desperately clinging onto him for dear life. But she banishes the idle fantasy; she doesn’t have anything to prove, and getting to fuck Spider-Man at night and get served breakfast by Peter Parker the next morning was enough wonderful strangeness in her life without a super-suit. 

MJ nudges Peter with her elbow. “Thanks, by the way. For believing my hunch last night and going to the Frick instead of going after the fires.”

Peter grins, putting his fork down to take her hand. “Of course, Em. You’re the smartest investigator I know,” he says genuinely. “And the Frick ended up way more interesting than the decoy fires would have been.”

Nodding in agreement, MJ shyly tucks a stray curl into her hairbun. “Yeah, last night was fun. I liked being… partners.”

“Yeah! Me, too,” he replies. “We should do it again. Be partners.”

“Totally. Like, I’m Han and you’re Chewie.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? ‘Cause isn’t Chewie the tall one? And with all that thick hair—” 

“I thought you’d like being the big one for a change,” she challenges, sliding her foot up his calf. 

He leans in close and brushes some crumbs off her lips with his thumb. “I’ll be anything you want me to be, Em.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * A lil' Spinneret and Ghost-Spider suits reference :3
> 
> Find me on the Tumblr @machiavelien


	5. Michelle: II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter uses his cunning linguistic skills, and MJ deals with some work stress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Track: [ FML by K. Flay ](https://open.spotify.com/track/304LtY1vFD8nxmuoHaUblv)  
>   
> Thank you for all your comments and kudos so far! I love talking meta, especially since I'm drawing from so many different Spider-Man/verse sources, so don't be shy with your questions/comments/thirsty squees :3  
>   
> 

Peter scrambles to hide the bloody towels and first aid kit when he hears her keys clatter on the kitchen counter, but MJ still sees the slashes down his chest and deep purple bruise blooming up his side. She drops her purse and rushes over to him, her heart in her throat.

MJ doesn’t say anything, but it’s clear that Peter is holding his breath, waiting for her to do something, maybe yell or scream at him. Except she won’t because she’s not angry—she’s terrified. When MJ is terrified, she shuts down and makes herself unseen, focusing only on the next immediate task.

He looks at her closely, eyes staring deeply into hers, his jaw tense. She avoids his gaze and concentrates on closing the wounds with liquid stitches first and letting his healing factor take care of the rest, then disinfects the shallower cuts.

She was only in middle school when her mother got sick, but MJ got pretty used to hospitals and tending wounds. She doesn’t tell him this, though; Peter already had the weight of the world on his shoulders, he didn’t need another reason to feel guilty on her behalf. So, she continues to methodically and gently clean him up, her lips pursed the whole time.

“It looks worse than it—”

“Don’t. Just… don’t,” she cuts him off, shaking her head. It is taking all of her strength to keep her composure together and not break down crying, the smell of alcohol swabs and feeling of gauze between her fingers bringing back her worst memories of her mother's final weeks. Peter looks down in defeat, his head in his hands. 

She throws out the last piece of bloody gauze and closes her eyes, leaning away from him and resting her head against the wall. She feels his hand slip under hers and rest on her knee, stroking his thumb in circles against her skin. She shivers despite the heat and slowly opens her eyes. 

Peter is looking back at her with the most forlorn expression, his big brown eyes pleading. She doesn't know how to tell him about her mother and OsCorp, isn't sure if she wants to yet when she still doesn't have any answers, just questions on top of questions.

MJ just cups her hand against his jaw, feeling it clench beneath her palm. A curl of brown hair flops over his forehead, making him look boyish and sleepy, but he was probably exhausted to the bone and trying to keep it all together for her sake. 

Her eyes trail down to his parted mouth, and she catches his lips on hers before he can speak. It's always easier to kiss than talk.

“C’mere. Combat duty deserves a little hazard pay,” MJ says against his lips, but her joke sounds more forlorn than she meant it to.

When MJ crawls back into bed later that night with the sound of the flushing toilet still rattling through their studio, she is relieved that it isn't light out yet and that the soft glow slipping through the bent and broken slats of their window blinds is only coming from street lamps and the bar across the street.

She nuzzles her face into the crook of Peter's arm, cheek pressed against his hard chest, and inhales the warm familiar scent of him, savoring the physicality of him right here with her in this moment, real and solid and pinned against her entire body. 

In a few hours, he won't be here in her arms, sleeping soundly while their legs tangled together and twist in the sweaty sheets. She won't be able to kiss him on the back of his neck, or roam her hands across the taut rippling muscles of his stomach.

Maybe, someday, she'll wake up to an empty bed in the middle of the night and get a call—except she won't, because who would contact a masked vigilante's next of kin? She wasn’t even his next of kin. His roommate? Fuckbuddy? She was nothing to Peter. But maybe that day is far away, and all she can do now is enjoy as many of these moments as she can.

So, MJ holds onto him a little tighter and tries to commit this feeling to memory: the weight of his arm stretched on top of her, the heat of his skin, the soft rise and fall of his chest with each breath. She eventually falls back asleep to fitful thoughts of the light fading from those brown eyes and his sleeping face morphing into an ashen and lifeless cadaver.

On campus at Harvard, MJ wasn't bombarded with endless local news cycles featuring Queen’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. But that didn't stop her from thinking about Peter everyday (or from keeping the Spider-Man news alert on her phone); wondering if he was alright, if he was alive, and if he was about to do the stupid and dangerous and brave thing that was finally going to get him killed. 

But living with him meant seeing him everyday and knowing how hard he got hit every night, what he was like the day after, and not being able to do anything about it except clean him up and hold him, but that was more for her than Peter.

Feeling morose the next day, MJ throws herself into her OsCorp investigation in between her Frontline tasks, researching and compiling contact information into an interview list. 

She didn't know how to tell Peter that it was okay but also not okay, that she could handle taking care of minor injuries with emotionally-detached precision while hating every second of it, without explaining something she didn't quite understand herself yet. Yet.

At first she had hypothesized that Norman Osborn was trying to cure his own mysterious, degenerative disease using patients with similar symptoms. But none of the patients’ diagnosed illnesses would have exhibited the symptoms that Harry had described in his father, which had matched MJ’s mother’s ailments. 

Now she needs to find out if any of the other patients began exhibiting Norman’s symptoms _after_ starting the treatments. Going through her list of contacts, Michelle starts calling and emailing, hoping someone would be willing to talk to her, and ends up leaving more voicemails than getting a hold of anyone. It was a grueling process, but this was the only lead she had at the moment.

Her life always felt that way, her juggling one lifeline after another while she pretends she has any control over anything at all.

-*-

“Tell me what you want to do to me, Peter,” she demands, straddling him and pulling him toward her.

“Um, cherish and kiss you?” he replies, running his hands up the sides of MJ’s waist. She playfully smacks his chest and he laughs, catching her hand and holding it against his heart. “Fine, fine! I want to... bury my face into your delicious cunt and fuck you with my tongue until I make you scream my name. How about that?”

MJ throws herself back on their bed, the pillows and sheets billowing up, and she sinks deep into the limitless warmth of his affection. Peter Parker never ceases to amaze her. 

Her giggles become a cackle as he maneuvers them around the bed, picking her up by wrapping just one arm around her waist and dropping her closer to the headboard so he could have more room to settle in between her long legs. 

His hot tongue runs up and down her slit, spreading her folds with each lick, and she moans loudly into a pillow as her fingers tangled in his hair, squeezing her thighs around his head. 

His mouth feels so good, but a sensation close to shame radiates through her when she realizes how exposed she is to him, how close he was to her down there, with her slickness all over his face. Did she smell alright? How did she taste? Was he just doing this for her sake, but secretly hated it? But it feels so good...

Peter looks up at MJ when she stills, caught up in her own thoughts, and starts flicking his tongue rapidly. “That tickles!” she shrieks, clamping her thighs around his neck.

“Thought you were getting bored there,” Peter snickers, sliding his hands along her thighs to coax her into releasing him. “You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

“What? Why would I be mad at you?”

“I shouldn’t have come back here that night all banged up like that—I didn’t mean to freak you out or worry you.”

She looks down at him with narrowed eyes and opens her legs to let him go. “Where else would you have gone?”

Peter licks his lips and then his fingers, the ones he was pressing inside of her while he sucked on her clit. “I don’t know, maybe a roof somewhere. I just need time to recharge, then I’m good as new. No biggie.” MJ sits up to glare at him, and he groans as he runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to hurt you, MJ. That’s the last thing I ever want to do, but I don’t think I will be able to help it.”

She squints at him. “That’s part of being a person, loser, and, you know, being in a relationship. Or whatever.”

He quirks both eyebrows up at her, smiling softly. “Relationship?”

“Or whatever.” She looks away from him, blushing.

Getting up from between her legs, Peter climbs toward MJ until he’s close enough to kiss her, but he just regards her tenderly for a moment. Then he finally kisses her, urgently and passionately, and the way his hot tongue tastes like her drives her insane. 

She eagerly licks the slickness off his chin and lips, making him moan into her mouth and pull her closer by the back of her neck. She wraps her hands around his forearm and squeezes the hard muscles. “What if we…”

Peter stills and pulls back to look at her, panting. His hands feel steady and secure as they rest on her shoulders, but his wide and pleading eyes are anything but sure. “Tell me, MJ. Please.”

She used to feel suffocated by the idea of dating Peter Parker, and terribly, terribly afraid—afraid of losing her best friend, and of screwing things up because she doesn't really know how to be close to someone. A ridiculous part of her even reasoned that if she wanted to end up with Peter, it didn't make sense to be his first girlfriend; if they were endgame, maybe she should wait for him instead. She's good at waiting.

But then again, a selfish and hungry part of her whispers, maybe they could really do this—maybe they could make it work and actually be together without giving up anything, without losing any part of themselves. He could still be Spider-Man and she could work her investigations, they could partner up sometimes to help each other out, and kissing in between would be a nice perk.

“Fuck it. Let's do it,” says MJ. “Let's be together.”

His entire face lights up. “Like, boyfriend and girlfriend together?”

She scrunches up her face to hide how much the idea of calling Peter her boyfriend fills her with immeasurable pleasure. “Sure, nerd. Whatever you want.”

“Come on, Em. Be honest with me, it can’t be easy for you. Being with me? With Spider-Man?”

“Okay, fine. I hate that you're Spider-Man, is that what you wanted to hear?” MJ asks, sitting up and letting her thick hair fall over her naked shoulders. “I hate that you're out there risking your life and limb all the goddamn time, and I hate it even more that I know it's the right thing to do. That you're the right person to have these powers because you're so _good_ and you'll use them to help people. But it kills me that it has to be you.” She reaches out and takes his face in her hands, scooting closer. “It feels like my heart is trapped in your fist, and you're about to leap off a cliff and kill us both.”

Peter takes her hands and presses kisses into her palms. “I’m nobody without Spider-Man.”

"Hey, idiot. Spider-Man never made you special. Being Peter Parker makes you special!”* MJ huffs, crossing her arms. “Besides, I’ve liked you since before you were Spider-Man.”

He let out a strangled laugh. “You want dorky four-eyed Penis Parker who could barely run the half-mile in the park?”

Every semester at Midtown, their class had to run along the track that circled the reservoir in Central Park for a timed physical fitness test, and Peter could never run faster than a twelve-minute mile without his asthma acting up. MJ knows this because she used to lag behind their classmates to keep an eye on him, but from a respectably long distance away, of course.

“Definitely. Harder for you to run away from me.”

His eyes flicked up to meet hers and his lips part softly. “MJ. I would never want to run away from you.”

She returns his yearning gaze with a sad one. “But you do it anyway, every night. And I don't want you to stop. I just wish… it could be some other way, someone else to take on the burden.”

“At least I got perfect vision out of it,” he quips lightly, stroking her arm.

“I liked your old glasses, though. Vintage tortoise shell frames, intellectual yet stylish. I was really digging your whole look back then.”

He lets out a soft chuckle, more out of surprise than anything. “They were the same kind of glasses my Uncle Ben used to wear. I wanted to be just like him with everything.” Peter looks up at MJ. “I haven't worn those glasses since forever. You remember what they look like?”

She blinks at him. “I'm observant.”

-*-

In high school, MJ would sit at the back of the class so she could have with a clear view of the back of Peter’s head. That's how she first saw him watching Spider-Man videos on YouTube during class and thought he was such a dork. She also noticed the weird side experiments he conducted during chemistry class, stirring mystery concoctions in a desk drawer while still managing to complete the in-class lab assignment perfectly. 

Then came the frustrating realization that Peter Parker, on top of being brilliant and strange, was also irritatingly charming. Maybe it was his brazen disregard for the rules and authority, or the earnest and winsome way he made his excuses. Or maybe it was that shit-eating grin plastered on his face whenever he got away with it. He was also chatty as hell, always quipping happily along or muttering sarcastic comments under his breath. 

She usually had legitimate reasons for calling Peter, like when he missed study group or Decathlon practice, and while it was annoying to get grilled by their teachers about his absences, MJ was secretly pleased that they thought of her and Ned as Peter’s keepers.

But then she started finding excuses to call him more, either to offer him her notes when he missed class or ask him questions about chemistry, or even just to tell him that Mr. Morita had busted Flash for parking in a handicap spot.

And every time she called him, MJ would continue torturing herself with the same game as the phone rang, promising herself that if Peter picked up this time, then she would tell him how she felt about him.

But he never picked up her calls, and she was never sure if that made her feel disappointed or relieved.

One time, MJ even left a voicemail telling him to relax and stop being so embarrassingly obvious about his crush on Liz; the irony of it wasn’t lost on her then either. She still cringes when she thinks of the time she blurted out to everyone in Decathlon practice that she wasn’t obsessed with Peter Parker, just very observant, _when no one had asked._

Honestly, she genuinely wasn't obsessed with Peter... at first. He just piqued her interest with his unnerving intelligence and good humor. 

Then he started disappearing at random points in the day and skipping out on classes, just as Spider-Man first started showing up in a homemade suit and stopping petty crime around Queens. 

Michelle knows because she kept track of Peter’s absences and which extracurricular activities and clubs he quit, and even when he had detention. He was a mystery, a story to unravel, and she was determined to figure him out.

-*-

Peter enters the lab he shares with Phil Chang, an ESU grad student who also interned at Stark Industries during the school year.

Phil spins around in his chair, his face stricken. “Peter! I’m so sorry, man. Those tabloid rags, they’re scum. No respect for anyone’s privacy.”

“Phil, what are you talking about?” Peter drops his bag onto his chair.

His co-worker furrows his brows. “Oh no, Peter. Damn, I thought you knew... that by now you would’ve seen?”

He pulls up the Daily Bugle’s website and leans back to give Peter a clear view of the computer screen, where the headline “BEAUTY AND THE SPIDER-BEAST” is splashed across a photo of Spider-Man holding onto a woman who had her arms wrapped around him; the web-slinger has his mask pulled above his nose, and their lips were pressed together in an unmistakable kiss.

“Isn’t this your girlfriend? Michelle? _”_

Peter’s eyes widen and he opens and closes his mouth a few times without saying anything. The photograph looks like it was taken on the night he swung them to the top of the arch in Washington Square Park and kissed her. 

He remembers how good her hair smelled and, most of all, the powerful feeling of having Michelle Jones’ arms tight around his neck as they swung through the air together.

With her periodically stopping by SI for midday romps with Peter, Phil has met MJ in passing enough times that Peter can't really deny that it's her in the photo. Should he try to lie anyway? Pretend to get upset? What would a macho guy do?

Finally, he croaks out, “Oh! Okay. It’s okay. Spider-Man’s, uh, on her celebrity list. We agreed that if either of us had a chance to kiss a celebrity crush as a one-time thing, we could go for it.”

His co-worker frowns. “So, you’re cool with your girlfriend making out with a freaking superhero? Aren’t you worried?”

“Nah, I could take Spider-Man,” Peter says, suppressing a smile as he sits down at his desk. 

Phil whistles and shrugs good naturedly. “Wow, wish I had that kind of confidence. So, who’s on your list? Of celebrities you’re allowed to makeout with?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Peter replies distractedly, still flustered that he had come so close to revealing his identity to his co-worker, and starts to frantically text MJ. 

Phil spins Peter's chair around. “Really? Come on. What about that Black Cat? Since you guys are apparently into that whole spandex thing.”

“Sure,” Peter chuckles nervously, glad that Phil had already moved on to another topic. 

After the Frick heist, the Black Cat started showing up all over the city after several high-profile but relatively minor thefts, a shapely silhouette that saluted at the camera and always disappeared shortly after. Peter strongly suspects that she's letting herself be seen on purpose in order to get Spider-Man's attention. 

But she'd have to try harder than that, because despite their Frick encounter, Spider-Man wasn't really in the business of helping rich people get their belongings back, not when they had the entire legal system and NYPD at their disposal. 

Phil spins his chair around again. “You know, it’s almost like _you’ve_ kissed Spider-Man, too, transitively. That’s pretty tight. And if Spider-Man’s ever hooked up with the Black Cat, at like a vigilante convention or whatever—”

“Phil, I think you’re just describing how infectious diseases spread.”

-*-

“My phone has been blowing up all morning over that damn photo,” MJ grumbles to Peter over FaceTime while she’s eating lunch alone at a public square a few blocks away from her office building.

She had tried to sneak into the office that morning but someone saw her and started slow-capping, and gradually all of her co-workers stood up and joined in applause. Someone had even whooped. 

“I think we were both very complicit and willing,” she assures Peter when he apologizes profusely again, his big brown eyes filled with dismay on her phone’s display. 

His lips curl into a grin and he waggles his eyebrows suggestively at her. “I’d still like to make it up to you, though, for all the trouble you're going through because of me.”

Taking a big bite of her sandwich, MJ says between chews, “You could do my laundry for me.”

He chuckles. “I already do your laundry for you.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to get more creative, loverboy.”

Thankfully MJ’s name is not identified in the Bugle article, which just refers to her as “Spider-Man’s ‘unlucky’ lady.” But anyone who knew her could recognize her lean shape and curly hair enough to at least suspect it was Michelle Jones attached to the famous web-slinger’s lips. 

Soon, random high school classmates she hasn’t spoken to in years and Harvard students she doesn’t even recognize started coming out of the woodwork, contacting her with messages that ranged from coy curiosity to outlandish demands and conspiracy theories about Spider-Man’s identity and motives. Her favorite one so far was the one that Michelle Jones was actually Spider-Man and trying to throw everyone off her trail by staging the kiss with an actor in a Spider-Man costume.

**Flash:** HOly shit Mj can you get me spider-man’s autograph?? Pretty rude to penis parker but DAMN girl get itttt! 

**Betty:** How could you do that to Peter?? I hope it was worth it. Was it worth it? Tell me everythinggg!! 

**Harry:** Guess that’s why you stopped texting me back huh? 

Harry messages her just as she is heading back into the office, and follows up with a spider and an angry face emoji. She scowls at it. 

After she figured out how little he really knew about his father's work, or at least how good he was at hiding it, MJ had started ignoring Harry for most of the spring semester. But he couldn’t—or more likely, wouldn’t—take the hint and persisted to interpret her detachment and coldness as a challenge, and continued trying to flirt with her over text, inviting her to come down to visit ESU and even offered to send her a private car service from Harvard—real subtle. 

She leaves Harry's latest text on read, but her phone vibrates with another slew of notifications from other people, which makes her want to chuck the device into a dumpster. Fed up, MJ privatizes all of her social media accounts and silences all notifications on her phone. 

For the hundredth time that day at work, she mumbled something about being so overwhelmed with emotions after Spider-Man saved her that she just had to kiss him, and how a near-death experience made her temporarily lose her mind. 

Towards the end of the day, when she thinks the commotion surrounding the Spider-Man kiss is finally dying down, she receives an email with the dreaded empty subject line from her boss that read, “Michelle. Please swing by my office when you have a moment.”

Taking deep breaths and schooling her face to a calmness she didn’t feel, MJ smooths down the collar of her shirt and ignores the gnawing dread in her stomach. 

-*-

“Michelle, do you know why I called you in here?”

MJ’s hands are clasped together so tightly that her knuckles turn white, and she swallows thickly before looking at her boss. “Um, no?” She has her suspicions, but that’s not the same thing as knowing, she tells herself.

Sally Floyd threw a folded newspaper onto her desk between them, and MJ didn’t have to look down to recognize the cover photo or to know it was today’s edition of the Daily Bugle. “Is this you?” she asks, her piercing blue eyes focused on the younger woman’s face. 

It was a direct question and MJ couldn’t lie, so she forces herself to look her boss in the eye when she answers. “Yes. That’s me. Not Spider-Man, the girl.”

The older woman returns MJ’s abashed gaze with a severe look, indicating her attempt to ease the tension wasn’t going to work. She doesn't say anything for a long time, trying to use MJ's discomfort to fluster her into rambling. But that tactic wouldn't work on MJ; she didn't invent it but she did perfect it. 

But what if Sally starts asking questions about Spider-Man, about MJ's personal life, about Peter? This woman was a professional investigative journalist, known for her ruthlessness and doggedness.

“I was worried about many things when I took you on as an intern, but the last thing I thought I'd have with you is this sort of... _page six drama_.”

Cool relief rushes through MJ's lungs, but a stinging sensation between embarrassment and guilt quickly replaces it. MJ bristles at the implication that she was not the kind of girl to end up in a tabloid story because she was supposed to be the good girl, the one who tutted at other girls for letting themselves get into a compromising position.

“The photo wasn’t that bad…” 

“That’s not the point and you know it.” Sally looks down at the newspaper contemplatively. “You were lucky—it only takes one photo at the wrong time with the wrong body language and expression. Michelle, you know better than this.” 

Shame burned on MJ’s face like a brand she couldn’t hide. She did know better, but why did she have to? She didn’t even do anything wrong—she was just kissing her live-in boyfriend after a romantic summer evening in the city. MJ almost smiles at the thought but bites the inside of her lip in time to grimace unpleasantly.

Her boss shook her head sympathetically. “This is the kind of distraction your career does not need, Michelle. Aside from calling your journalistic professionalism into question, you’ll also be judged more harshly than any of your male counterparts would be in the same situation.” 

MJ doesn't say anything and just nods, hating that she disappointed her editor and role model over something so embarrassing.

After a painfully long silence, which may very well have been a few seconds, Sally asks, “Did you get what you needed at least?”

MJ must have looked as clueless as she felt because her boss sighs exasperatedly and clarifies, “From Spider-Man. Did you get what you were after from him? For all the trouble you’re going through now?”

“Oh. Uh, no—I mean, I wasn’t after something from him. He saved me from, um, getting hit by a car, so I was… grateful.”

Sally raises a suspicious eyebrow and MJ feels foolish for trying to lie to a seasoned investigative journalist without a plan, but the older woman takes pity on her intern and sighs. “Look, do whatever you need to do for the story. Just don't get caught, again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man Issue #672


	6. Michelle: III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track:   
> [ “Opulence” by Brooke Candy ](https://open.spotify.com/album/2LjIiAjYoyjj7gkY2jdCa6)  
>   
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments so far! They feed the smut machine :D

Still getting over the sting of disappointing her editor, MJ throws herself into her work and the art heist story, desperate—no, determined—to prove herself and restore her reputation as the smart girl, the competent one, not the kind of girl that attracts drama and gossip.

After reviewing the details from the Frick, she figures out that a few of the stolen pieces did not come from the Fontainebleau; a set of vases had been on loan from a private collection. It took some digging to find a name and even more effort to get in contact with the collector's attorney, so MJ was surprised that they were willing to meet with her. 

What started out as a horrible week was just the kick in the ass that she needed to work on this story in earnest, she convinces herself.

Meanwhile, the Daily Bugle's attempts to smear Spider-Man somehow makes him more popular than ever; by associating Queens’ friendly neighborhood vigilante with an air of bad-boy danger (“Beware, ladies! Before this public menace ensnares you in his web!”), the tabloid inadvertently turns him into New York's most eligible super-bachelor. 

The occasional tokens of appreciation from grateful citizens start becoming more risque and suggestive in nature, leaving Peter perplexed with what to do with all the scribbled phone numbers he receives and the requests from girls to sign his autograph on various body parts (“Why would anyone want me to Sharpie their butt?!”). Wearing Spidey-themed bikinis and thongs even starts trending among Instagram models (“Okay, this lady's not even wearing anything, she's just licking a Spider-Man popsicle!”).

Fortunately, everyone else is as thick as MJ is mortified, and no one seems to make the connection between Spider-Man and her boyfriend—except to pester Peter about how he feels about dating the Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man. He takes it all in stride, ever affable, and just shrugs it off, but MJ can tell he’s secretly very pleased with himself.

_-*-_

Trying her hardest to maintain her well-practiced neutral and unimpressed expression, MJ still catches her jaw literally dropping several times as she makes her way through the gilded hotel lobby, which leads to the separate entrance of the residential suites at the New York Palace Hotel. Stepping out of the private elevator, she is greeted by floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the living room and offered breathtaking views of the dusky midtown skyline. A shimmering crystal chandelier hovers above them like strings of golden raindrops.

MJ has never been in any place as luxurious as this penthouse before; not even the world-renowned museums and historic palaces that she visited during Midtown's European science trip could measure up. Maybe it was the private elevator, polished black marble foyer, and lack of tourists prodding at the art, which, in this suite included a two-story black-and-white wall mural—true luxury, she supposes, is having absolute privacy and not having to deal with other people.

“By French artists Alex et Marine,” her host says of the mural as she gives MJ a tour of the _triplex_ suite. “Not my type of art, but you know that already.”

“Oh?”

“I prefer my art to have a more visceral connection to the human experience.” The woman gestures over her shoulder for MJ to follow her into the study. 

There she shows off her collection of erotic art and artifacts, such as a Ming Dynasty jade statue of a copulating couple, and a seventeenth century painting from Bangkok depicting Hanuman, the monkey king of Lop Buri, enjoying intercourse with Lady Butsamali, a fallen angel.

MJ usually tries not to make assumptions or have preconceptions about people, especially since she wants to be an investigative journalist, but Felicia Hardy was pointedly _not_ the pearl-clutching, middle-aged waspy art collector she had imagined. 

In fact, she isn’t much older than MJ, perhaps twenty-three or four at most, and wears a chic black lapelless blazer over a lace bustier that showed off her ample cleavage. Felicia herself is also stunning; like a glamorous old-Hollywood bombshell with her long platinum blonde hair and vampy red nails and lips.

When MJ thanks her for meeting with her, Felicia waves her off as she pours a bottle of Pinot Gris, setting the glasses down on the black marble table. “I’ve had enough of sausage-fest press conferences and so-called reporters who think they have a shot with me just by having a dick. So, I was thrilled to see a female journalist reach out to talk about my art collection.”

MJ laughs, genuinely and pleasantly surprised. “Thanks, Ms. Hardy—”

The other woman slides a glass of wine toward her and flutters her long lashes. “Please. Felicia.”

“Thanks, Felicia. Well, let’s start at the beginning. How did you come by the vases in the first place?”

“From a Sotheby's auction. I can send you copies of the paperwork if you want,” she replies, sipping on her own glass. “Honestly, they weren't among my favorite pieces in my collection, but now that they've been stolen, I really want them back. Isn't that always how it goes? You never really care about something you have until someone else comes and takes it.”

“Your vases were artifacts from Beijing's old Summer Palace, which got looted by British and French soldiers during their colonization of Asia. They're priceless to some Chinese Nationals, perhaps even the government.”

“I had no idea they were part of an imperial collection. I just liked all the painted dicks,” Felicia laughs, tossing her head back.

“You perv!” MJ giggles, forgetting that she was interviewing a source for work and not hanging out with a friend. She quickly clamps her mouth shut.

The other woman just smiles mysteriously and winks back at her. There is an intimidating but alluring air of danger around Felicia, from how she bared her canines a little too much when she grinned to the way she would stare a little longer than necessary into MJ’s eyes before blinking away.

“Humans have been sexual creatures from the very start,” Felicia points out, setting her glass down. “It’s part of our mutation, our deviancy, called a frontal lobe and an ego. We don’t just mate and reproduce, we have sexual identities and sexuality that attracts us to others, or sexuality that attracts us to no one, and it’s all so deliciously complicated,” she muses, stretching out on a Belgian linen chaise. “And we used to incorporate sex and sexuality into everything around us—art, worship, daily life—until the Church decided to suppress and erase sexual objects and events out of history books. Now the Western world is left with centuries of blue balls and pent up frustration that manifests as destruction, domination, and this pathetic self-flagellation that we call 'work ethic.'”

She leaps onto her feet with controlled ease and slinks toward the master bedroom, gesturing MJ to follow her. “Besides, erotica is so much more fun than like, paintings of farmers and shit. Come on, I need to get ready for tonight.”

MJ continues telling her about the Frick heist, interested in hearing her take on it. There was something about Felicia; a perceptiveness and irreverence that MJ had not anticipated. “Many of these items are well documented and publicly known, so they’d be very hard to fence or display in the open, so the pieces seem to have simply vanished.”

“Maybe they're sentimental?”

“I don't think sentimentality leads to the kind of professional precision and expertise that the Frick perp has. I think maybe someone hired a pro, but why such an expensive one for the items that were stolen? Much more expensive pieces were left behind.”

Felicia studies MJ for a moment, her green eyes sliding down her face assessingly. “Patriotism is sentimental. Religion is sentimental. Pride is sentimental. Think of all the things men are willing to do and how much they're willing to pay for sentimentality.”

While Felicia changes behind a folded screen, the women continue discussing possible motives for the thief or thieves, which turns into a discussion on the meaning of theft and how it must exist in a capitalistic framework that protects ownership for some but not all people. They talk about how the law punishes those who operate outside 'acceptable' means of theft, those who dare steal from the ones who originally stole everything in the first place—within acceptable means, of course.

"So they can justify buying and enslaving humans," adds MJ, "or selling daughters, forcing entire communities from their homes and homeland, erecting arbitrary walls and borders, protecting the shareholders’ interests, and committing atrocities in the name of country and faith.

“That’s the problem with possessions. You can lose them. They can break or they can be taken from you,” Felicia says fervently, coming around to sit at her makeup vanity. “And then everyone thinks they can take what’s yours. Your belongings. Your freedom. Your dignity. And they will. Unless you show them they’re wrong. Nothing–and no one–will ever have that kind of hold on me again.”

Unsure if Felicia was still talking to MJ or if she was directing the last part to herself, MJ decides to say nothing, though she doesn't want their conversation to end.

Felicia turns to face MJ, whipping her long platinum hair around, and points at her. “You're coming out with me tonight.”

MJ looks down at her fitted grey jeans and dark red sleeveless turtleneck, which had seemed smart but casual when she first put it on. “It's not really my scene… and I don’t have a fake ID.”

Felicia smiles wolfishly. “Oh my god, you are the cutest thing.”

If MJ had that Spider-sense Peter has, she thinks it would be going off right now, because her mean-girl sensor is definitely sniffing suspiciously. Felicia has no reason to be so nice to her or even to meet with her like this, and the glamorous socialite definitely does not need to invite a college student to go out with her.

Younger MJ would have suspected Felicia of teasing her or setting her up, but MJ finds herself sitting in front of her host’s glamorous vanity as said host inspects her, gently turning her head left and right.

MJ isn't used to being touched by other people except for Peter, but she can’t help thinking how nice it feels to be fussed over like this. Distant and critical, her mom never fawned over her in the same way; when MJ's father's drinking got so bad that he couldn't hold down a job anymore, in teaching or otherwise, her mother ended up juggling two jobs to support their family. There was no time or money for anything but the necessities, and MJ knew she just wanted to teach her daughter to be tough and pragmatic.

But there is something soothing about the way Felicia’s cool fingers run along MJ’s neck and scalp as she experimentally piles her hair into different styles, softly cooing about MJ's perfect cheekbones and eyelashes.

“Girl, your legs go on for miles!” Felicia exclaims next, running her soft hands down MJ’s legs.

MJ blushes, looking back in the mirror. “Yeah, like a giraffe.”

“A _sexy_ giraffe,” the other woman says pointedly, slapping MJ’s hand away when she tries to adjust the slit in the dress she was trying on. “This is _the_ dress. Embrace your assets, Michelle.”

So she does. MJ stands up tall with a hand on her hip, extending her left leg across her body and twisting at the waist to elongate her silhouette. She used to feel deeply insecure about her body, from her lanky and gangly frame to her frizzy natural hair. Towering over the boys in her class by middle school, she felt like her limbs were too long, so she got comfortable with being a tomboy, aloof and unaffected; she couldn't fail if she didn't try. 

_But Felicia's dress looks damn good on me_ , she thinks to herself, running her fingers through her thick wavy hair to shake it out.

“I’m going to wear it down and natural,” MJ decides. 

“Yes! And tits up!” Felicia commands, tugging at the already-low neckline to reveal more of MJ’s cleavage.

“I don't know, my boyfriend might be weird about it,” she replies hesitantly, feeling a little guilty for using Peter as an excuse for her own discomfort. The other woman just rolls her eyes.

“So? Send him a pic. He should be excited that you’re showing off what he has the privilege of taking home. And if he still gets angry, we'll just send him a snap of us making out,” Felicia says, her bracelets clinking as she waves her hand in the air dismissively.

MJ frowns. “Oh, he's not that kind of guy—”

 _“Every guy_ is that kind of guy,” Felicia assures her, not unkindly. MJ doesn't find it worth fighting her on it, so she drops her shoulders and lets the neckline droop lower across her chest.

-*-

Instinctively, MJ sleepily reaches out for Peter across the bed when she starts to wake up, but instead her knuckles graze across waxed-smooth and toned thighs. Her eyes snap open but the room is pitch dark. Sweating too much under the heavy comforter, she throws the covers off only to realize she wasn't wearing anything but her underwear.

“Oh my god, Felicia! What happened last night?” MJ clutches a pillow to her chest. Her heart is racing, and her mouth is dry and tastes terrible. She can’t remember her night beyond a haze of loud music and flashing lights, and she _definitely_ can’t remember how she got back to the penthouse.

Felicia must have hit a control button for the room because the blackout curtains that reach all the way to the ceiling begin to silently slide open along a hidden track.

“Relax, Michelle. You got some splashback when you were throwing up in the bathroom last night, so you got naked and fell asleep,” the socialite replies languidly, pulling off her black silk sleeping mask and shaking out her wavy blonde locks. “Trust me, if something had happened between us, you'd remember.”

Frantically searching for her cellphone among the billowing folds of the bajillion-count comforter and downy pillows, MJ scrolls through her texts to make sure she didn’t do something irreparable like tweet Spider-Man’s identity. Then she quickly texts Peter, telling him that she’s alive and at Felicia’s place, but with a raging headache.

Freshly showered and wrapped in the most luxurious bathrobe she's ever worn, MJ emerges from the ridiculous marbled-monstrosity of a bathroom just as Peter comes in with a cardboard tray of coffee and tea.

“Whoa, this place is like Buckingham Palace or something,” he says, kicking the door closed behind him with his foot. “The people downstairs are super nice, too! Not like at hotels I’ve been to, where the staff’s always suspicious of you, like you took something from the room you’re not supposed to or that you’re using too many pool towels.”

“Oh my God!” Felicia moans, snatching one of the coffees from the tray and inhaling it through the plastic lid.

MJ takes the cup with the tea-bag tag hanging out the side and kisses Peter on the cheek. “Sorry, morning breath. And maybe also some vom from last night.”

“I think you threw up in the bidet, too,” Felicia volunteers.

“Thanks, Felicia!” MJ snaps, gritting her teeth.

Peter kisses her back on the lips anyway, giving her an easy smile. “It’s okay, I don't even know what a bidet is.”

Felicia hops onto the sectional sofa, landing softly on her feet, and walks across the cushions while cradling her coffee in the air like it’s a glass of wine. She turns back to MJ. “I like this one. What do you call him again?”

“This is Peter,” MJ introduces, bumping her shoulder against his. “Peter, this is Felicia Hardy, fine art collector, jetsetter, and—”

“If you say influencer, I'll have to murder you.” Their host tousles her long blonde hair over her shoulder and reaches out to shake his hand. 

Wearing only a black silk camisole and matching silk briefs, Felicia is the only person MJ believes would casually sleep in sexy lingerie every night. Meanwhile, MJ is wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe with her damp hair dripping down her back, and she feels utterly dumpy and childish next to the glamorous socialite.

“And where do I _get_ one of these?” Felicia asks, sipping on her coffee.

Peter perks up from playing with MJ’s hair. “Oh, I got the coffee from this cafe by—”

Ignoring him, Felicia looks at MJ with raised eyebrows and gestures in his direction. “I mean _him_ , how do I get one like _him_?”

MJ laughs, pressing her head against Peter’s shoulder. “I don’t know, he just followed me home one day and I couldn't not keep him. But I might be willing to share until you find one.”

Felicia's eyes twinkle mischievously. “Be careful, Michelle, I might take you up on that.” She clears her throat and looks at Peter. “I take my coffee black, like my AmEx, and it should be ready the moment I wake up, so...noon?”

“You got it, boss,” he nods seriously, and the two women giggle.

When Felicia excuses herself to take a call in her study, leaving MJ and Peter alone in the grand suite, MJ presses a kiss to his cheek. “I'm sorry I didn't come home last night. I hope I didn't worry you.”

“Me? Worry? Why would I worry? You texted and everything. Do I seem like a worrier to you?” Peter asks indignantly, gesturing too much with his hands.

She squints at him suspiciously until her eyes widen with realization. “You were following us last night.”

“Might have been on my patrol route,” he shrugs noncommittally, a brown lock falling toward his eye. “You looked really nice. Like really, really nice. New dress?”

Too pleased that Peter got to see her in _that_ dress to get offended over being secretly chaperoned by Spider-Man, MJ even chooses not to call him out on changing the topic. “Glad you enjoyed the view, Petey-O. Felicia let me borrow it. Oh, crap! I hope I didn't ruin it. It probably costs more than our rent.”

Peter puts his arm around her and pinches her buttcheek through her bathrobe. “Are you naked under there?” 

He groans when she nods and starts rubbing his palm up and down the terrycloth covering her hips.

“Let's go home, Em. I know a way back that's faster than even the fanciest and most expensive car service Felicia can buy,” Peter murmurs in MJ's ear, smiling mischievously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * In my head, the dress MJ borrows from Felicia is similar to the [Orseund Iris drawstring dress.](https://orseundiris.com/products/drawstring-dress-champagne)


	7. Michelle: IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ continues her investigations, and Peter shows her what a Venus Butterfly is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track:[ COPYCAT (Sofi Tukker Remix) by Billie Eilish ](https://open.spotify.com/track/2njUxZ4151DWIrfIK3loFj?si=Ht4eNrfnRO-Iif4tH0alBQ)  
>   
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos <3 Bumping this up from 10 to 14 chapters yikes! Halfway there...

Peter came home in a foul mood, which doesn’t usually happen—sad, guilt-ridden, and exhausted, yes, but not annoyed or angry. 

MJ greedily watches the muscles of his broad back tighten and relax as he undresses. Fuming, he leaves his suit in a careless pile on the floor by the window he just crawled through. 

“My patrols have sucked so much lately. All these women—and some dudes—are all, like, _Oooh, help me Spidey! I'm soooo afraid, hold me tight!_ And it's so dangerous! And they're wasting my time—Spider-Man’s time—when I could be helping people in actual danger that they didn't put themselves in.”

The Spidey-craze stirred up by the photo of Spider-Man kissing a mystery woman has yet to die down after two weeks, and only morphs into new trends and memes. Most recently, opportunistic girls and women keep coming forward, claiming to be 'the Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man' or putting themselves in risky situations in the hopes of getting 'saved’ by New York’s sexiest super-bachelor. 

The Daily Bugle has a field day tearing into Spider-Man, blaming the dangerous new fad as the result of youths corrupted by his negative and depraved influence, and warning the city about the wall-crawling menace. In an op-ed by the Editor in Chief Jonah Jameson himself, he called Spider-Man a deviant and answered his own rhetorical question on whether Spider-Man was a menace or a threat: "He's both! Sometimes he's a threatening menace. And sometimes he's a menacing threat!"

“Doesn't the Spider-Man code say everyone deserves rescuing, regardless of whose fault got them into a bad situation?” MJ challenges, running her hands along Peter’s shoulders to coax him into sitting down for a massage. “You even help muggers sometimes.”

He drops to a seat on the bed, hanging his head and fiddling with his mask in his hands. “Yeah, but only when they actually want to stop committing petty crime, or when they’re put in a tough situation that was out of their control in the first place. These… stalker fans are just selfish and putting themselves and other people in danger because they feel entitled to something from me!” Peter throws his mask on the floor. “As if Spider-Man is suddenly up for grabs and theirs to grope. Ugh.”

MJ climbs into bed to kneel behind him and begins rubbing and kneading the muscles in his neck until he relaxes and lets the tension melt away under her touch. 

“Costumes are not consent?” she suggests.

“Exactly! Costumes are not consent!” He sighs heavily. "Sorry I’m no fun tonight, MJ. How are you doing? How’s the Frick investigation going?”

“Well for starters, Felicia Hardy was way more helpful and forthcoming than I expected,” she replies as she combs her fingers through his hair, raking and massaging his scalp. He sighs more happily this time and leans back against her. “She even helped confirm some of my theories. Now I just need to interview the closest source I’ve come across for the case… but how am I supposed to contact someone who doesn't want to be found, or even seen?”

Peter turns and squints his eyes suspiciously at her, mimicking one of MJ’s most common expressions. “You’re talking about the Black Cat.”

MJ lifts a shoulder coyly. “I’m talking about a lead… a lead you can help me get in contact with?”

“That would just encourage and reward her bad behavior,” says Peter, shaking his head. “She thinks she can get Spider-Man's attention by committing crimes around the city, and maybe that would have worked when I was in highschool, but Spider-Man has bigger stuff to handle now than rich people getting robbed!”

“She’s technically a burglar,” MJ points out. “The Black Cat has been breaking into places to steal stuff, not taking it by force from anyone, and there haven’t been any reports of her being violent.”

He frowns, but after some consideration finally replies, “Just be careful.”

“Of course. I know how shady those spandex types are,” says MJ, resuming her ministrations along his shoulders. “What did John Jonah Jameson call them? Degenerate circus freaks?” 

Peter's soft chuckle fills her with a warm satisfaction. MJ likes being able to cheer him up when he gets into one of his funks, to be the one to make _him_ laugh.

Because no one deserves to laugh more than Peter Parker.

Because despite everything he has lost and the countless ways he has suffered—which would have broken anyone else—Peter is always ready with a joke to lighten the mood. Because everyone else's peace of mind comes before his own. Because stubbornly holding onto his sense of humor, even when he is getting the shit kicked out of him, is also another way Spider-Man could stick it to his enemies. 

After Peter has finished venting out all his frustrations, about the Black Cat and the Daily Bugle and everything else, it's just the two of left them sitting in the dark. The struggling air conditioner whirs on, muffling the traffic sounds outside. 

MJ’s hands work their way down his neck to his back, pressing into knots and making him groan. As her fingers dig into the tightness between his shoulder blades, she presses a kiss gently against a bruise on his back, then brushes her lips along a healing scar next to it. She traces another scar along his tricep that she had stitched up for him last week, and the fierce need to protect him swells in her.

Sometimes MJ resents the entire world for always hurting Peter, over and over again, for taking him for granted and then persecuting him on top of it all. It downright pisses her off, actually. But none of it has ever stopped him from putting on the mask and going out there every day to help anyone who needs him. 

But right now, _she_ needs him, and she thinks—hopes—that maybe he needs her, too. 

Pushing him onto his back, MJ kneels over Peter to straddle him and begins tugging her shirt over her head. He leans up to help, but she swats his hands away and tosses her shirt into the darkness of their room. “Lie down,” she commands. He does.

She lets him ogle her bare breasts for a moment before scooting up to remove her underwear, and coming back down to sit on his face. Peter hums approvingly, his hands coming around to grip her thighs around his head, and slides his tongue teasingly along her slit. She moans softly, reaching down to tug at his hair, so he takes that as her signal for him to continue licking. 

Her hips roll languidly, grinding her cunt against his face, but before he can probe his tongue further, she sits back up on her knees. When he tries to sit up with her, MJ pushes him back down. “You had a long night. Just lie down and… relax. Let me take care of you.” She blushes a little and tilts her head. “You know, if you want.”

Nodding excitedly, Peter drops his head back on the bed and lets his tired limbs fall spread eagle. His abs flex and twitch in anticipation, which leaves her a little breathless. 

She maneuvers herself around to kneel over him while facing his feet, and when they’re in position for sixty-nine, she grabs his hard-on and starts to lick slowly. 

“Do you like this?” she asks, trailing her tongue along his length.

“Fuck yes,” he gasps from behind her. 

She feels him slide a finger between her wet folds, making her moan softly, and when she doesn’t stop sucking him, he slowly edges in a second finger until she's comfortably stretched around both digits. When his fingers graze the perfect spot inside of her, MJ gasps with his cock still in her mouth. 

“Does that feel good?” Peter asks in a thick voice.

MJ deepthroats him once more before dragging his entire length out of her mouth. “ _I_ was supposed to take care of _you_ tonight... But you’re making it very hard to concentrate...” she pants, looking back at him over her shoulder. 

Peter responds by grabbing her around the hips and flipping her onto her back, and kneeling to settle in between her thighs. “Is this helping you concentrate?”

He slides two fingers back inside her, curling them against her inner walls and making her squirm with every thrust of his hand. Then she feels him spreading her with his thumb and free fingers to expose her clit. He licks it, once, twice, then runs his tongue down her folds to meet his slick pumping fingers.*

Her breathing gets faster and more difficult to catch as Peter sucks her clit, making MJ squeal and clench her thighs. But he keeps licking and fingering her, causing a delicious tension to coil up inside her, tighter and tighter.

Without warning, hot waves of pleasure rush out and engulf her body, radiating from the apex of her legs and out to the tips of her fingers and toes. She is floating in a hot lake, sweating and naked, far from the shore of consciousness. Then she is sinking deeper and deeper beneath the surface until she’s back in their bed in their apartment, too boneless to move.

“You didn’t get off,” MJ rasps when she finds her voice again. “Tonight was supposed to be for you—”

He kisses her on the cheek. “That was exactly what I needed, MJ.” 

“Yeah? And what’s that?” She rolls over to look up at him, her bones still feeling like jelly.

“A reminder that Peter Parker can still do some things right,” he says with a crooked smile. 

-*-

Settling into the makeshift stake-out that she constructed on the roof of an office building in FiDi, MJ turns the tracker in the lucky cat trinket back on. It is almost dusk, and the sky is a deep blue fading into darkness. She gets a quarter of the way into her book when she sees a shadow cast before her.

“Why, hello there. You rang?” 

A figure lands silently on the rooftop behind MJ, who startles a little but calms herself before turning around. 

“The Black Cat,” MJ addresses her coolly.

The other woman flashes a feral smile. “The Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man.”

Mentally growling with exasperation, MJ takes a slow inhale and reminds herself to remain calm and unreadable. “We work together,” she replies steadily. “I’m an investigative journalist, and sometimes Spider-Man helps me out with a story.”

Perched on a ledge with her legs crossed, the Black Cat cocks her head. “Helps out, huh? How can a girl get that kind of “help” around here? I've got a _sticky_ situation only one web-slinger could help with.”

“I want to ask you some questions about a case I’m working on.”

The burglar yawns and reclines the length of her body along the perilous edge of the roof, propping her head up by one arm. But she doesn’t leave. 

“Chinese heirlooms have been disappearing from museums all over Europe,” MJ begins. “And a dozen similar pieces were taken from the Frick just last week. Coincidentally, they’re all objects that were looted by British and French troops who ransacked Beijing’s Old Summer Place in 1860. They plundered what they could carry, then burned down the imperial estate when they were done.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Black Cat replies, running a clawed hand down the curve of her hips and resting it along her thigh. “Does sound like a bunch of men, though. It’s not enough to take what’s not theirs, they have to destroy everything around it, too.”

“You don’t take what’s not yours?”

“I’m just an escrow agent,” she says, tightening her high ponytail and adjusting her mask-goggles. “I’m not involved with the deal, I just handle the goods. For a fee of course.”

Gathering her courage, MJ slowly approaches the other woman and stops when they're a pace apart. “That’s fair. Besides, is it really stealing if the loot was already stolen in the first place? Seems like whoever took the art was just… returning them home.”

The Black Cat leans in close enough for MJ to feel the warm press of their shoulders and smell the musky spicy scent of the burglar's perfume, but MJ doesn’t flinch or shrink back. The woman whispers darkly in her ear, her breath tickling MJ's neck, “I'm not a hero. I'm a thief. Born a thief, raised a thief, will die a thief.”

Steeling her nerves, MJ crosses her arms and replies cooly, “Nah. You seem like an independent agent, a contractor. You choose which jobs to take or not, right? You’re not under anyone’s thumb?”

“Yeah, that’s right, something like that,” the masked woman responds, amused.

“Do you tend to handle merchandise for private individuals of means, or are you more of a... government contractor?”

“Sneaky kitty,” Black Cat chides. “What are you trying to find out?”

“I’m trying to find out who is stealing these artifacts, _really_ stealing them. Who’s hiring professionals like you to do it.”

“You already know who stole those artifacts in the first place. Maybe someone wants them back.”

MJ raises an eyebrow. “That was one of my suspicions.”

The other woman's lips curl into a cryptic half smile but she doesn't say anything. MJ takes that as permission to continue asking questions.

“So, are you only for hire or do you also... acquire on your own behalf?” 

The worst thing Black Cat could do is refuse to answer her questions, MJ reminds herself, trying to suppress the image of black claws slitting her throat open. 

“I love mixing work with play, if that’s what you’re asking?” the masked woman replies coyly, rocking precariously on the railing that runs along a rooftop edge.

MJ continues without missing a beat. “Is there any sort of work or play that’s off limits to you?”

Black Cat seems to ponder the question as she sweeps across the rooftop. “I don’t steal from anyone who couldn’t afford it.”

“I can respect that,” says MJ, toying with the lucky cat token that Peter helped her reactivate and build a disabler into.

“Why don’t you tell your boyfriend that? Not that I don’t enjoy having him on my tail, but I get the feeling he only has _lawful_ goals in mind.”

“Spider-Man’s not my boyfriend,” MJ says quickly. 

“No? So, he just happened to give you that lucky cat on a whim?”

“So I could contact you. I already told you, he just helps me with my investigations sometimes. Besides, I already have a boyfriend. Who’s not Spider-Man.” MJ is not sure why she feels loyal to Peter but also possessive of Spider-Man at the same time with this woman.

“Congratulations. So, does that mean Spider’s available? If he is, do be a dear and pass my number along to him, would you?” Black Cat purrs, arching her back as she prepares to shoot her grappling hook. “Or maybe I’ll pay him a visit myself.”

With that, she propels herself up to a higher rooftop, disappearing into the night and leaving MJ scowling after her. 

-*-

“This investigation originally sought to answer the simple question of who has been responsible for the recent string of high-profile museum robberies targeting Chinese antiquities. Who is the thief?” Michelle clears her throat when she loses her place in her notes, but quickly recovers. “But going further back, the answer has been right in front of us—the current possessors, Western European museums benefiting from the spoils of war and conquests in China when the nation was most vulnerable.” 

She had run her hypothesis by Sally first, presenting her research into the Frick and conveniently omitting anything in relation to the Black Cat, and her boss gave her the go ahead to present at the next staff meeting. 

So, MJ suggests that there may be a larger dynamic going on, maybe rogue repatriations by wealthy individual Chinese collector's, or potentially some Chinese government’s involvement—albeit nothing officially sanctioned—prompting the staff investigators to use their contacts among the Chinese billionaire elite and art collectors. 

A source from a renowned art museum in Norway, which was hit by thieves at least twice in the same year, disclosed a tip that authorities had received about a piece that taken in one of the break-ins. They were told it had made its way back to China and was now brazenly on display at an airport in Shanghai. 

But Norwegian authorities lacked the power to pursue the lead, wary of upsetting the delicate relationship with China, and did nothing. “If we say an item is in China, they say, ‘Prove it,’” said the head of Norway's art-crime unit. So, he told the FrontLine investigator, they stood down. “We don't want to insult anyone.”

The published article doesn't name the Black Cat, of course, but it calls the thieves ‘Robin Hoods of culturally significant artifacts’ who are returning the heirlooms to their rightful home. The art historians and professors they interviewed explained how the ‘re-stolen’ pieces were all previously taken during China’s Century of Humiliation to be displayed back home in resplendent European museums. Whoever is breaking into these museums now are specifically targeting those pieces and willing to leave much more valuable pieces that don't have that provenance. In what could be considered acts of patriotism, whoever is hiring the thieves are simply restoring pieces of China's cultural history that had been seized by foreigners. 

It wasn't the sort of news breaking discovery that would put Michelle on the map as far as top investigative journalists in the world go, but her editor had commended her for coming up with the angle and thinking outside of the box.

“Good job. We're here to expose the truth and tell the story, not find a convenient scapegoat or perp that we can pin everything on,” Sally said. “We're not the cops. Or Spider-Man.”

MJ just blushed and nodded.

Peter printed and framed a screenshot of the Frontline homepage featuring the heist article, as well as a print of the full article, and presents it to MJ when she got home from work. “Even though it's an online paper, you should still get to hang it up!”

“It's not even my own byline,” MJ waves him off, still unable to stop smiling.

“So? None of the Stark designs I'm working on are going to be my own patents, but I'm still contributing and learning a ton. You gave your team the real lead, right? To make the article possible?”

She concedes on that. Sally had given MJ a stern nod of approval and said, “Glad to see your head back in the game.” So, that should count for something. Peter was right, she did learn a lot, and got to practice how to track down a lead and work a source. 

It was also pretty fun being Spider-Man's Woman in the Chair while she got her story. Or did that make Spider-Man her hired muscle?

She tells herself that's why she's been neglecting the OsCorp investigation over the last few weeks—she was too busy chasing another hot story. Last month she had sent out some feeler emails and left voice messages for the other OsCorp patients that she had been able to track down, but unsurprisingly received no responses. 

Many, if not all, of them are deceased—some confirmed by public records, and others were MJ’s speculation, though likely given their terminal diagnoses years ago. Their family members were also difficult to track down since many of the patients were single parents and their children are long lost in the foster system. Everything felt like a dead end, the case too cold—if there was ever a case in the first place. 

But when she starts getting responses later telling her not to contact them again, Michelle, riding on the high of her recent journalistic success and detecting something suspicious, decides to visit the addresses listed in her files.

Most people simply slam the door in her face, if they bother answering at all. One guy, whose hands were shaking from years of alcohol abuse, even accused her of being sent by “them” to test him, insisting that he wasn't a rat and that “they” could trust him. 

The only person willing to actually talk to her is the son of a patient, one of the most recent deaths. He was a few years younger than her, but was about the same age she was when her mother died. Old enough to understand that something wrong was happening to his dad but too young and powerless to do anything to stop it. 

“I didn't sign no papers,” he scoffs when she asks about a waiver. 

“OsCorp didn't give you a check to keep your mouth shut about what they did to your father?”

“You're saying I coulda been paid out? Shit. I just keep missing out on every break in life, huh? They probably thought I was just a kid, didn't know nothing.”

“Don't feel too bad. My dad burned his check on booze and god knows what or who else so fast that I didn't even know about it until this year.”

The kid goes on to confirm that his father exhibited similar symptoms as MJ's mother, but with the chilling addition of long nails and teeth that rapidly grew overnight. MJ tries not to shudder in front of the kid, and her stomach knotted at having to feel somewhat grateful that didn't happen to her mom.

The kid's father’s treatment began after her mother had already succumbed to her version of the OsCorp treatment, which means that whatever the treatment was still happening—and it was advancing into something even more monstrous. 

_But to what end?_ MJ wonders desperately. _What is Norman Osborn trying to do? What is he hoping to accomplish that's worth all the pain and death and cover-ups?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The [ Venus Butterfly ](https://www.cbr.com/foggy-ruins-of-time-what-the-heck-is-a-venus-butterfly/) move from Amazing Spider-Man #298!!! It's canon, folks, nothing I can do about it. 


	8. Michelle: V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some gals being pals, plus Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [ Sister by K.Flay](https://open.spotify.com/track/2KlecS6I44n4qlXG9ywD6S?si=C4rZvOuVT9uV4hT1qlU5eQ)

Peter studies the skyline from his viewpoint atop the Chrysler building, staring out at the lights and letting the sounds wash over him until it all blends together into a rushing hum. 

The city at its best always reminds him of MJ: beautiful, intimidating, and mysterious. 

Sometimes, the city breaks his heart, too, but he can never imagine leaving. He has lived in New York his entire life and is probably the person who has traversed the most of it, but it still keeps surprising him every day, just like MJ does.

The city also feels like home—familiar and safe, like MJ's smile, her sarcasm, and the feeling of her hand entwined in his. Home is MJ lounging around, wearing one of his old oversized T-shirts from highschool, her round buttcheeks peeking out beneath the hem; it’s her sketches and doodles on scrap paper around their apartment, and the piles of her books that have become makeshift nightstands.

MJ used to be an unknown factor to him, cryptic and unapproachable. But over the years she has let him in closer and closer, shedding the layers that separate them, one by one—like the trail of clothes she leaves across their studio when she impatiently undresses herself on the way into his arms.

He knows he hasn't made it to the center of the real MJ, and that she hasn't let him into her heart the way he has so readily let her into his. But he doesn't think she has ever let anyone in, maybe not even herself.

Besides, Peter doesn't want to spook her with his feelings. He knows he cares too much and trusts too fast, so he treads lightly with her, staving off his desperate longing to know her, _really_ know her.

He tugs his mask back on and leaps off the chrome eagle ornament he's standing on, arms extended wide so the webbing on his underarms can catch the air, and then he's gliding high above the traffic. 

Just as living with her has afforded him daily opportunities to glimpse into her mind, MJ's spoken word performances have given him a peek into her past, particularly the parts neither of them ever bring up. He's never asked about her parents and she's never really talked about them, but Peter knows better than anyone that, sometimes, it's easier to bury the past and move on. 

He has managed to piece together that her mother passed away while MJ was in middle school and that her father is an alcoholic, although Peter has never met him. MJ also didn't like it when he saw the housing projects she grew up in, even though the pre-war walk-up building he lived in with Aunt May wasn't exactly fancy either. By senior year of high school, MJ eventually came around in letting him walk her home sometimes.

She once told him that it was difficult for her to get close to people, and even finding the resolve to admit that to him was a struggle for her. So Peter tries to pay attention to all the things MJ doesn't say, all the things she does or doesn't do, how she reacts to something when she thinks no one is watching. Sometimes, he even manages to catch the emotions that slip past her own carefully constructed mask.

Peter slings out a web rope so he can round the corner of a large skyscraper. Whooping at the momentum of his swing, he makes his way out of Manhattan, eagerly thwipping his way home.

Standing against the edge of their bed, Peter pushes MJ down onto her back and guides her long legs over his shoulders. When she nods, he sinks into her with a groan and begins to move in and out of her slowly and deeply, playing with her breasts and pinching her nipples until she is grasping at the sheets and moaning louder and louder for him. 

Being inside her feels incredible. She's so wet and pliant, and he still can't believe this is really happening. If all the Parker luck he will ever have has been traded in for her, then he made out like a bandit, he thinks.

When MJ starts gasping and squeezing her walls around him, Peter knows it will only take a few more minutes to push her over the edge. So he increases the speed of his thrusts and tells her to watch what his cock is doing to her and how he fills her. 

She goes wild lying there beneath him, her hips squirming and thrashing in ecstasy, but he holds on until he feels her give into the tightly coiled tension that’s been building up inside her.

MJ finally comes in long, deep, and hard shuddering spells, her entire body shaking. Peter loves watching her cum; how she is transported somewhere else far away, twisting in the sheets and gasping with her eyes closed. 

He is so close and determined to finish himself, so he keeps up his vigorous pace even after she's done. Gripping the edge of the mattress for leverage, MJ pushes back against each of his thrusts, harder and harder, until Peter groans loudly and empties himself into her.

After he ties up and throws out the condom, Peter gets back into bed beside MJ, who is all flushed and dewy and still catching her breath. He tells her she looks like she's waking up from a dream. 

“More like a food coma,” she snarks. But with her pink lips parted and her curly hair fanned out behind her, she looks so soft and open lying there, looking up at him.

It's on the tip of his tongue to say it, to tell her, _I love you, MJ._ He even fantasizes that she smiles and says it back, simply and without any caveats. 

But the real MJ in his arms, still sweaty and naked, is already snoring softly, and he decides that he’ll have time enough to tell her later.

-*-

Sinking into the cobalt blue mohair cushions, Michelle is huddled next to Felicia in a corner banquette at Eleven Madison Park, a ridiculously fancy restaurant that served a caviar benedict with a poached quail egg for brunch. Felicia insisted on treating Michelle to a celebratory meal after her heist article is published. 

“Not my byline,” Michelle reminds her, but she waves her off.

“And not the first time a woman's work was used to bolstor someone else's CV,” Felicia counters.

After they are served their entrees, Felicia points out the blue chalkboard painting that presides over the dining room and tells Michelle about the artist’s politically and erotically charged work, which centered around themes of anthropomorphism and femininity.

“I have one of her earlier pieces from the nineties, when she was painting nymphs on demonic backgrounds. You should check out her video series on American extremism, which she calls ‘a snakes’ nest of very righteous Christians,’” Felicia grins. “Think car crashes, beggars, lurkers, and scenes of mass mayhem like the Oklahoma City bombing.” Michelle is sure Felicia raised her voice on purpose on the last bit.

This is probably the most upscale and intimidating restaurant MJ has ever been to in her life, but Felicia can sweep into a room and immediately own it, so she just follows her lead and suppresses the self-consciousness that arises whenever a white middle-aged patron sniffs disapprovingly in her direction. 

“Speaking of lurkers, what was it like? Kissing Spider-Man,” Felicia asks, spearing a piece of poached lobster with her fork and taking a languous bite; she has a knack for making the most mundane gestures seem sensuous. 

MJ sighs. Her editor was right—that photo really is going to haunt her forever. Tucking her hair behind her ear, MJ sits up taller and decides to own the story, like Felicia had told her to do. “It was… unplanned. Spider-Man just saved my life so I did it without thinking. Caught up in the moment kind of thing.”

“Good for you! Ugh, he’s just so sexy and dangerous,” Felicia sighs, stirring her cocktail longingly, but her eyes flick up mischievously. “ _Almost_ as much as I am. And that butt! The spandex hides nothing. I bet he’s totally an exhibitionist and the crime-fighting is just a side hobby.”

“Are you telling me that the famous heartbreaking socialite Felicia Hardy is a Spidey groupie?” MJ teases. The other woman raises a shoulder coyly and they both start giggling, earning looks from other suited diners in the middle of business lunches, which only makes them laugh harder. 

Felicia’s hair is styled into a platinum faux-hawk that tapers into a French braid down her back, like a sleek modern viking, and her cat winged-eyes sparkle mischievously.

“I have this fantasy,” she begins, then bites her tongue and looks at MJ expectantly, waiting for her to tell her to continue. MJ nods amusedly, and Felicia leans in closer. “I have this fantasy that Spider-Man crawls into my bedroom while I'm asleep at night, gets into bed with me, and fucks me from behind. I never see his face.”

MJ’s eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, making the other woman interpret her reaction as scandalized shock. But it was actually because of the unbidden—and very vivid—memory that Felicia’s words had summoned to MJ's mind: a naked and eager Peter slipping into bed after a late night patrol last week, newly showered and fresh from a fight. MJ remembers the way he groaned into her hair and gripped her hips when she pushed back against him, driving him deeper inside of her. MJ coughs and takes a sip of her tea.

“It's totally creepy, isn't it? You think I'm a freak now, with some gimp suit fetish, don't you? Well, maybe I am...” Felicia smiles devilishly and sucks on her Bloody Maria through a steel straw. “Were you scared? What does his voice sound like?”

Taking a bite of asparagus, MJ shakes her head. “No, of course I wasn't, it’s Spider-Man. And his voice is just… a guy. I don't know.”

The blonde woman eyes her pensively. “Was he a good kisser?”

MJ thinks back to that night and how Peter's lips were cold and chapped from swinging through the night air, but his tongue was hot and hungry as he kissed her, and how she didn't want to stop tasting his mouth even when she ran out of breath. “He was okay.”

Although she knows Felicia only cares about the notoriety and thrill of Spider-Man, the masked superhero who skirted the law every night and not the real, breathing, soft-eyed boy beneath, she can’t help the strange possessive panic that bubbled up in her gut. Was this jealousy? It's different than how she felt about Peter's crush on Liz Toomes, maybe because this time he was actually hers to lose.

“You know, I have to admit that I actually took that first meeting with you because you were the ‘Girl who Kissed Spider-Man,’” Felicia says, biting her lip. “I’m sorry! Are you angry with me?”

MJ quickly shakes her head, but it did wound her a little that it was her connection with Spider-Man that had gotten her foot in the door with Felicia. Picking at the mushroom carpaccio, she pushes the strange slices around the oversized white plate with her fork. 

Sensing her disappointment, Felicia scoots closer to snake her arms around MJ’s waist. “I was just _so_ curious to meet the woman who was bold enough to snag a smooch from the infamous wall crawler. A woman who goes after what she wants. I figured I could learn a thing or two from you.” 

Her face is so close that MJ has to blink a few times to compose herself again, but then she sits up taller and glances down at the blonde woman. 

“Alright. So, tell me, Felicia Hardy. What is it that _you_ want?”

-*-

Arching her back, MJ glances at her reflection over her shoulder and shakes out her thick curly hair like a lion’s mane. Pouting at herself, she tries to put on an obnoxiously sultry expression, one that she imagines Felicia might make. 

She’s been doing that a lot recently, wondering what she would do or think if she were Felicia in a given situation. How would Felicia tear someone down? With a smile, then make them ask for more. What would her seduction face look like for a soft-hearted, puppy-eyed boy like Peter? MJ studies herself in the mirror, wondering what he sees when he looks at her.

But then she shrieks when the real Felicia sneaks up and pounces on her from behind, and the two of them topple over onto the bed, giggling, until MJ forgets to get embarrassed over being caught preening in front of a mirror—Felicia has that effect on her. She embodies the persona MJ wants to cultivate in herself, except Felicia's cool seems genuinely effortless; nothing ever really phases her and she never seems embarrassed about anything. 

Michelle is calm, controlled, and unreadable, but it’s a practiced mask to hide the undercurrent of doubt and anxiety that constantly simmers inside her. Felicia, however, lets everything roll off her with a blithe irreverence, as if nothing can stick to her or hold her down, almost as if she’s completely empty inside. 

MJ once came across an old photo of Felicia from high school, when they were still the same age before the Blip. She was glaring at the camera with a bored, pouty expression, and wearing an oversized varsity jacket with her long blonde hair tousled and loose over the side of her face. Felicia was either the edgiest popular girl, or the most popular girl among the misfits. MJ suspects she was both and neither—Felicia was whatever she needed to be to get what she wanted out of people. 

MJ wonders what it's like to have always been that intimidatingly beautiful, and what it's like to be able to command a room the way Felicia does. MJ has spent the better part of her life honing her introversion into the right amount of aloofness to come off as mysterious rather than alienating—with mixed results. But it's clear that Felicia has always been adored, the mesmerizing center of everyone's attention, and even someone who hated her probably couldn't help being drawn to her. 

Which is why MJ still doesn't understand why the socialite is spending time with her instead of the glamorous and famous friends she must have. Is it their shared interest in Spider-Man? Is she just bored? MJ had finished the art heist article without really solving the question of who exactly ended up with Felicia's vases, but Felicia didn’t seem to care. She never even brought them up again.

“What? No, I don’t give a shit about the vases. I collected the insurance already,” Felicia reveals when MJ finally caves and asks her if she was upset about her stolen vases. “Told you they weren’t my favorite pieces. And based on what you’re telling me about this case, they’re probably long gone back to mainland China somewhere by now.”

Then, with the poise of a ballerina, Felicia waltzes on the balls of her feet toward the old fashioned record player that came with the suite and drops the needle onto the spinning vinyl. _“Michelle, ma belle… Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble… Très bien ensemble…!”_ Her husky and throaty voice is surprisingly soft and melodic as she sings along to The Beatles, and she alternates between sashaying and twirling on her toes as she crosses the room back to where MJ is settled.

“That song's the reason my parents named me Michelle,” says MJ, looking up from her sketchbook. Her father used to sing _Michelle_ to her when she was a little girl. He would swing her around while she sat on his shoulders, and when her mother joined in, their harmonized voices made MJ truly believe that nothing could ever go wrong as long as she had the both of them by her side.

Felicia reclines across the chaise next to MJ and bats at her ponytail to get her attention. “ _Michelle_. Pretty name for a pretty girl.” 

MJ’s face grows hot under the other woman's penetrating gaze, so she keeps her focus on her drawings, ignoring that they’re all gesture studies of Felicia’s dance poses. “Thanks. Are you also gonna tell me that I’d look prettier if I smile more?”

A predatory sneer unfurls across Felicia’s face. “Only if you walk that ass by me one more time, baby.”

MJ snorts; nothing like bonding and commiserating over shared experiences of street harassment and cheesy catcalls. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you’re a stuck-up bitch that I didn’t wanna fuck anyway!” Felicia cackles, kicking her legs in the air.

“Damn straight,” MJ declares, sweeping her pencil across the page to sketch the long lines of her model’s legs.

-*-

When Peter texts that he’ll be out late on patrol one evening, Felicia insists that MJ spend the night at the penthouse, and MJ accepts the very tempting offer. Without Peter in bed beside her (or on top of her, or underneath, she’s not picky), their grungy studio lost much of its appeal next to the luxurious, air-conditioned suite and its twelve foot tall ceilings, not to mention how Felicia’s bathroom alone was the size of their sublet. 

The women end up polishing off an entire bottle of wine between the two of them while watching Spider-Man's latest escapades on the news.

“Drink whenever he looks like an absolute snack!” Felicia commands, swigging directly from the bottle of obscenely expensive wine from the hotel suite’s private cellar. 

“I bet he goes full commando underneath,” Michelle suggests as she reaches for the bottle, knowing full well Peter wears boxers under his suit, but it wouldn't hurt to let Felicia imagine otherwise. They both end up passed out in the plush California king bed until the morning. 

Felicia’s eyelashes flutter against her smooth skin as she wakes, and the pale green of her irises dilate in the sunlight and glint like a prism. There's also something weary in her eyes, like she's tired of always being on the alert, but it flits away and her expression settles back into a self-satisfied smirk when she sees MJ already awake. “Hey… what’s new, pussy cat?”

Tangling her long legs with MJ’s under the sheets, Felicia playfully wrestles her a bit, giggling. Her skin is impossibly soft and smooth all over, and MJ wonders if her own legs feel as nice, suddenly self conscious about the last time she shaved.

“When’s your boy toy coming to pick you up today?” Felicia rolls onto her stomach and props her chin in her hands.

“Peter said he’d be here by ten.”

“Good,” says Felicia, reaching over to take MJ's hand. “That gives us just enough time for a quick one.”

Holding her hands out with her fingers splayed, MJ gently flaps her hands to air-dry her freshly painted manicure, courtesy of Felicia, who is now feeding her pieces of fruit off a platter from room service.

“Knew I'd have you eating out of my hands in no time,” Felicia winks, dangling a cherry in front of her.

Biting into the dark red cherry, Michelle pierces the skin with her teeth and lets the tart sweetness burst in her mouth. Felicia reaches out and swipes at Michelle's lips to smear the juice.

“I used to do this as a little kid, stain my lips with berries and stuff.” She draws her finger back from Michelle's lips and licks it, her green eyes trailing over her face.

“Hey, guys!” Peter pops his head around the foyer and into the suite. Michelle startles; she didn’t realize it was already ten.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” says Felicia as she stretches her legs out across the chaise and holds her hand out. “You have my coffee, serf?”

Peter chuckles and knocks her hand with his knee when he comes around to kiss MJ on the cheek. “Spoiled much, Felicia?”

“Damn straight,” Felicia deadpans, reaching for the tallest cup on the cardboard tray balanced in his hand. “I'm as spoiled as they come. Grew up in a big house, owned fancy cars, went to an all girls prep school, plus I'm an only child. The perfect storm.”

“Privilege isn’t the same as being spoiled,” says MJ. “You appreciate what you’ve got.” 

Felicia shrugs, picking at the remnants of the fruit tray. “Maybe the Blip does that I guess. But when I was growing up? That's a different story. I was a total brat that always got what I wanted. But what really spoiled me was my dad.” 

The blonde smiles fondly, without malice or irony. “He always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. Like when I got into basketball, he’d be like, _Why cheer on the dopey boys when you can be starting center, Fee Fee_?” She imitates a man’s gruff New York accent, curling her lips.

Peter smiles. "Your dad sounds great."

Twisting a grape of the vine, Felicia nods. “He travelled a ton for work, but always made time for me whenever he could, ever since I was little. We were inseparable." She pops the grape in her mouth. "And then a month after my sixteenth birthday, he died. Drowned in the East River.”

Michelle and Peter exchange a look, unsure of what to say, but for different reasons. 

Peter is torn between his need to comfort and his impulse to avoid tension. Michelle, on the other hand, had run a background check on Felicia when they first met, so she’s known for a while about Walter Hardy, a successful salesman who died in a freak accident. She also knows what it’s like to keep her grief deep inside and closed off. 

“Anyway, they say the model for every relationship a woman has with a man is predicated on the relationship she shares with the first man she ever loved,” continues Felicia, nonplussed. “But no guy has ever really measured up to my dad. He was the best.”

Michelle snorts, trying to lighten the mood for Peter’s sake when she sees the sorrow shadowing his eyes. “If that’s true, then I’m doomed. My dad is a drunken asshole.” 

She has never really talked about her father with anyone, not even Peter, but she feels compelled to volunteer something about herself after Felicia's disclosure. And maybe it felt nice to say it out loud finally; for all the pain he put her mother through, she never let Michelle speak ill of her father in front of her, even when it was all true.

“Maybe you’ll end up with someone just like him. Or the total opposite,” proposes Felicia, popping a piece of fruit in her mouth.

Her eyes flick towards Peter, who frowns and objects, “That’s kinda reductive, don’t you think?”

Felicia shrugs. “We’re all a lot simpler than we like to think we are. Look at me, for example. Spoiled daddy’s girl? Stuck-up rich bitch? Blonde maneater? All true.”

“But that’s not all you are,” Michelle points out. 

“Then tell me, kitty, what else am I?”

“A basketball star, apparently, _Fee Fee_ ,” she prods. The other woman laughs.

“Are you challenging me to a game, Jones?”

Satisfied that her shiny black nailpolish was dry enough now, Michelle slides a hand under Peter’s shirt to scratch his back and graze the hard lines of his muscles. “Yes, but I’ll be sending a champion in my stead.”

-*-

Peter has her cornered against the sideline when he makes a grab for the ball, but Felicia blocks him with her shoulder and attempts a hook shot over his head—and sinks it. 

“Eat that, Parker!”

“Is that even allowed?!”

“Making sick shots in basketball? Yes, it's quite encouraged,” Felicia says smugly, resting the ball against her hip. She turns to give MJ a sultry look over her shoulder, whipping her shiny platinum blonde ponytail around. “Michelle, come play a round with us!”

“No thanks, I don't do sports. Or any physical activity that isn't Parker,” MJ replies from the sidelines where she's settled comfortably into a seat with her current book. Peter drops the basketball that had been perfectly balanced and spinning on his fingertips, his ears red.

Ignoring him, Felicia tilts her head and pouts at MJ, but then her lips quickly curl into a devilish smile again. “And you still look like that? Damn, you lucky kitty! I'm jealous. Well, enjoy watching me kick your boyfriend's butt again!” 

Her hips sway as she jogs back toward the court on her long, smooth legs, her shorts snugly outlining her toned butt and thighs. MJ slides her eyes over to Peter to see if he was also watching Felicia, but she catches him staring back at her instead with a goofy smile. He winks at MJ and she rolls her eyes back at him. 

Felicia checks the ball back to Peter and they're at it again, shuffling against each other as they alternate between dribbling and grabbing for the ball, staring each other down throughout the entire scuffle. When Peter gets a rebound, he turns to pivot out of her grasp, almost making it around her before she slinks across and blocks him in the other direction.

MJ wonders if Peter should be having any trouble at all winning a basketball game against a regular non-genetically enhanced human. There's a light sheen of sweat dotting his brow, though more from panic than from being physically drained. Hyper-focused on his opponent as he tries to get the ball from her, Peter's reflexes are as quick as they ever are, but Felicia is constantly feinting and switching up her footwork, capitalizing on his inexperience with playing basketball.

Peter hovers over her, pressing his body against Felicia from behind as she periodically elbows him, keeping the ball away from him whenever he makes a reach for it. She misses on her next shot, so Peter gets the ball back and dribbles it away while she's still hot on his heels. 

Felicia knocks into him with her hip and locks her extended leg out to trip him, but Peter deftly steps past and continues dribbling toward the basket, nearly making it in until Felicia swats the ball out of the air mid-shot and dribbles it away.

“It's play or be played, Parker,” Felicia says tauntingly after making another shot, giving him a gallic shrug.

Peter wipes his face with the front of his shirt, his abs flashing beneath the lifted hem. “Jeez, how did you get so good at basketball?”

“How did _I_ get so good? Daddy and I used to play pickup games in the morning before school every day, ever since I was little enough to piggyback on his shoulders and dunk. I've been playing basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse since I was a kid.” Felicia puts her hands on her hips. “What did you play in school, Mr. Robotics and—what was it again? Nerd trivia-thon? How did _you_ get so good? When do you even work out?”

“Hey, AcaDec wasn't just trivia!” MJ interrupts, feigning indignance to steer Felicia away from her too-perceptive line of questioning. “It’s a multidisciplinary scholastic competition. Peter was our science guy and I was captain.”

“You nerds!” Felicia exclaims in delight, tightening her high ponytail. “Anyway, I was just kidding, Peter. You're not that good at basketball. Don't get me wrong, you're in crazy good shape, like what-the-fuck good shape, but you obviously didn't grow up playing contact sports.”

Peter huffs indignantly. “Actually, I get into pretty close contact with some serious, uh, dudes sometimes. On the court. And field. And other sports pitches...”

MJ pinches him to shut him up, feeling her heartbeat pick up when Felicia narrows her eyes at Peter, but thankfully she starts giggling. “Right, whatever you say, tough guy. I just mean you aren't thinking about what I'm doing on the court, you're only thinking about your own moves and what you need to do to get what you want. You’re not anticipating what I'm about to do and what _I_ want, which makes it so easy to run circles around you—literally.”

When Felicia is defending next, she gets up close to Peter to fluster him into taking a difficult shot, which he still does, but he also manages to bank the ball into the net. With a huff, she jogs after him around the half court, clearly starting to tire after over two hours of their one-on-one matches. Peter starts getting past her defense more easily and sinks the ball into the net again.

“I don't know how he always outlasts me,” Felicia pants, re-tying her hair up as she walks toward where MJ is sitting. “I usually win the first few games because I have better moves—” Peter rolls his eyes at that, but Felicia continues. “But he never seems to get tired! And trust me, I have _incredible_ stamina.” She winks at MJ. “Peter's the first guy able to keep up with me...” 

MJ glances over at Peter, who is drinking voraciously from a water bottle, and she can’t stop herself from staring at the way his neck muscles move as he swallows the water greedily, or at the sweat that trickles down his jaw, or how his forearms are pumped and glistening as he grips the bottle. 

“Geez, keep that lady boner under control,” Felicia whispers loudly in Michelle’s ear. Michelle elbows her back playfully. 

-*-

“This is… a lateral vascular restraint that constricts... the blood flow from the carotid arteries to the brain,” Felicia pants, locking her arms tighter around Peter’s neck, as well as wrapping her legs around his torso to hold him in place. 

“I can totally get out of this... but I don’t wanna hurt you, Felicia,” Peter chokes out.

Felicia tightens her hold, eliciting a pained grunt from her opponent. “I thought you were... supposed to be good with physics, Pete. Ever heard of... leverage? Okay, Michelle, your turn!”

Felicia releases Peter and flawlessly hops to her feet as if she hadn’t just spent the last few minutes grappling with him on the floor, only a light sheen of sweat on her brow betraying her composure.

“Remember, Michelle, resisting a more powerful opponent head on will only result in your defeat. You want to adjust to and evade his attack, which causes him to lose his balance and gives you a window of opportunity to act,” Felicia lectures. “This applies regardless of your relative strengths, making it possible for weaker opponents to beat significantly stronger ones.”

Notwithstanding her height and all the torment she went through in middle school for it, basketball was not Michelle’s sport, neither playing nor watching it. But when Felicia offers to show her some basic judo moves, she jumps at the chance to learn some defensive techniques. They use Peter as a hypothetical attacker so that Felicia can demonstrate various techniques, and MJ can attempt the same moves on him under Felicia’s watchful eye. 

At the start, Peter can’t bring himself to attack Michelle; he just stands there sheepishly, paralyzed and looking at her with those mournful puppy eyes. 

“Come on, Parker!” Felicia snaps. “You’re not doing her any favors by holding back. She needs to learn how to defend herself against a real opponent, against someone who wants to hurt her.”

Peter frowns intensely and clenches his fists, no doubt imagining all the worst possible scenarios involving his girlfriend. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, MJ hooks her foot around his ankle and wraps her arms around his torso. Peter trips and falls right into her, and they go down together, giggling in a pile on the floor mat.

Felicia just rolls her eyes. “At least she’s got the right idea. Parker, how on earth are you going to hold your own in a fight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like, can Peter even throw a punch?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated--I'd love to hear what you're thinking!


	9. Michelle: VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise with the summer heat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track:  
> [ That Other Girl ](https://open.spotify.com/track/04Mr5jeXzPFnEQUPtPzRVP?si=Ih-PaWtpQHmOZceepxv5Fg)by Sevdaliza

The summer passes by in a lazy haze; the city is muggy and sluggish, oppressive in its humid heat, but that’s not what has Michelle’s brain melting.

While mentally cataloging observations and snarky anecdotes to tell Felicia later (the ones she thinks are too dark or mean to tell Peter), Michelle wonders if she should start wearing a signature perfume like Felicia does. Would Peter notice? Even a faint whiff of Felicia’s musky, slightly smoky, and floral scent left behind on MJ’s hair and clothes would conjure her smoldering presence into the room. Michelle wants to have that effect on people, particularly one teenage web-slinger.

Her time with Felicia Hardy feels like a fever dream, a willful distraction that is slowly taking over Michelle’s days and nights. Sometimes she wonders if Felicia’s even real or if she’s just a joint hallucination that she shares with Peter, like a busty and vivacious [ _folie à deux_ ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2919794/). 

Unsurprisingly, Peter and his quirks quickly grow on Felicia, as he does with anyone who spends any extended amount of time with him. Her initial dismissiveness towards him becomes a fond acceptance as they spend more time tussling around in the gym and on the basketball court.

“It's kinda nice being able to spar and shoot hoops with a guy and not worry about getting groped,” she confides in Michelle, panting and sweaty from another workout, then whispers in her ear, “But to be honest, I don't think I'd mind it from Pete!”

Smiling back tightly, Michelle finds that she doesn't like Felicia's fake flirty jokes as much when they're about Peter instead of her. She knows they’re harmless and just part of Felicia’s sexy vamp schtick, but it would fluster Peter and make him uncomfortable. She's just looking out for him since he can't put up with Felicia’s teasing the way she can, Michelle concludes. That's why she doesn't like Felicia's jokes, and for no other reason.

-*-

Insisting that they take turns with covering their group dinners, Peter brings back Thai take-out for the three of them, and they eat it out of the original plastic containers while sitting on the floor around Felicia's black marble coffee table.

“Oh my god, I remember this place!” Felicia exclaims, popping the lid off her stir-fried noodles. “It was the only decent restaurant that would deliver to my dorm past two a.m. I can’t believe it’s still around. I fucking love their pad kee mao.” 

Peter nods, slurping the egg noodles out of his chicken curry. “An underrated ESU institution for us night owls, for sure.”

“Is that grungy old-school boxing gym on Duane Street still around, too? They used to let me come by and hit the bags after hours, no matter how late it was. Pretty cathartic after a frustrating night out. I swear, the Blip just got rid of the top fifty percentile of men and left us with the absolute dregs,” Felicia sighs exaggeratedly, waving her chopsticks in the air. “It was a fucking wasteland out there.”

“Really? Not a single guy you met was remotely dateable to you?” Peter asks skeptically.

“Dateable? I meant just getting a decent fuck. The guys I met were either hot but stupid and shit in bed, or a decent hookup but so-so in everything else. Forget a relationship, I couldn't even find a good lay. Besides, I don't really like getting tied down.”

Peter smirks. “I thought you were into that sort of thing, Hardy.”

Her green eyes widen. “Ooh, looks like I'm rubbing off on the boy scout! But no, I prefer to do the tying down.” 

Felicia sticks her tongue out and Peter throws a balled up paper straw wrapper at her, but she bats it out of the air and it lands perfectly in his curry. 

Michelle hates the smile that Felicia flashes at Peter; it’s knowing and secretive, which is a little pathetic because there is no way any other woman knows more of Peter's secrets than MJ does.

“But, like, seriously. Even when things are amazing, I still kind of resent being tied down. I get restless and act out, do things to sabotage the relationship,” Felicia says idly, combing her fingers through her long hair. “I don’t intentionally hurt other people, but sometimes I honestly just can’t stop myself.”

“Or maybe you’re just a jerk, Felicia,” suggests Peter in between chewing his food. “Ever consider that?”

Felicia turns to MJ, huffing indignantly. “Are you going to let him call me names like that?”

Picking at the noodles at the bottom of her carton, MJ shrugs back indifferently without looking up. “What do you expect me to do? He’s incorrigible.”

Peter actually does act differently around Felicia; he's a little meaner and snarkier, sometimes even outright obnoxious towards her, and Michelle isn't sure what to make of that.

-*-

_Her lips feel so warm and delicious against hers and their hands are all over each other. Soon, they are both out of their clothes and MJ gets to taste every part of Felicia’s body. She doesn’t remember actually doing it, only the heady feeling of believing she’s done it. Her skin must have been so soft and cool against her lips._

_Felicia can tell she is nervous, so she takes control and makes her way to the space between MJ’s legs. She starts licking slowly, and her tongue alternates between hard and probing, then wide and soft. Her green eyes glow bright and hungry, like a cat lapping at milk. But her gaze is too intense for MJ, so she drops her head back, searching for something else to focus on, and suddenly Peter is there, naked and hard. So she opens her mouth for him and sucks him while Felicia goes down on her._

_Staring up into his brown eyes, MJ wonders what he thinks about all this, but when she blinks, his face turns into Spider-Man’s mask. With another blink, MJ finds herself watching from afar as Peter, with his mask on, is fucking Felicia from behind. He is holding her down roughly by the back of her neck and pressing her face into the mattress. Felicia raises her ass high in the air and wails as he rams into her over and over again._

_MJ tries to get closer to them but can’t seem to move, and no sound comes out when she calls for them. Felicia is on top of Peter as they struggle against each other, and they carry on without noticing her, clawing at each other. Then, Felicia suddenly turns her head, locks her eyes on MJ, and flashes a triumphant smile filled entirely with sharp teeth._

“Jee-sus fuck!” MJ gasps awake, sheets soaked with sweat and twisting around her limbs. She's still aroused, but having lost the rhythm toward an orgasm, she just feels mostly clammy and sexually frustrated now that she's awake and picking sleep out of her eyes.

The bizarre dream was already slipping away from her consciousness, until she can only remember the feeling of it—alluring, but also threatening? Peter was there, he is often in her dreams, and she thinks Felicia was there, too. The dream also feels a bit like her, similar to the way a room can feel like someone even when they’re not there. But MJ can't remember any of the details about the dream anymore, just the feeling of waking up horny but unfinished.

MJ shows up at Stark Industries during her lunch break the next day without telling Peter ahead of time, and just tugs him into a nearby coat closet and drops to her knees. 

With his hands shaking excitedly, Peter unzips his pants and his hard-on springs out from his boxers. Eyeing it hungrily, MJ grips him by the base and, after a quick glance over her shoulder, begins sucking eagerly. Every hot stroke of her mouth makes him moan, so he has to bite down on his fist to quiet himself while trying not to trip over his pants bunched around his ankles.

But the sound of her wet sucking echoes in the small closet, and he barely manages to gasp out, “This is so awesome… you’re fucking amazing, Em.”

"Your cock is mine," she pants, staring up at him as she pumps his hard, slick length. When he nods eagerly, caressing her jaw with his thumb, she smiles and takes him into her mouth again.

After several minutes of her working him with her hands and mouth, Peter groans and grabs her head when he makes his final thrusts. 

Letting him fill her mouth before swallowing it all down, MJ savors the warm, salty spurts from Peter's throbbing cock hitting her tongue and throat. The fleeting realization that she has something Felicia wants flits across her mind idly. 

_She would want to know how thick and sticky Spider-Man's cum is_ , Michelle smirks to herself, running her tongue up and down Peter's length to finish him off.

-*-

Michelle blames the weird dream for her strange head space and behavior all week. Or maybe it’s the heatwave. Or the humidity that keeps making her clothes cling to her sticky skin. It makes her brain feel like mush barely capable of critical thinking, but also leaves her feeling aroused and agitated at the same time.

To delay her return to their stuffy, barely air-conditioned studio, Michelle stops by Felicia's after work and is surprised to find that Peter has already beaten her there. Quietly stepping out of her heels, she softly traipses across the marble floor.

Peter is sitting on the chaise in the living room with Felicia kneeling over him, her full chest heaving and hovering near his chin. His hands are gripping his knees, knuckles white.

“You know what I love about boys like you?” Her lips are by his ear, her nose barely grazing his neck. He swallows thickly but doesn't move a muscle. “I love…” She trails a dark nail down his jaw and to his collarbone. “...their girlfriends!” Felicia shrieks, laughing, and launches herself to her feet by pushing off of Peter's chest and spins to face Michelle. “Hey, kitten!”

Peter exhales heavily, dropping his head backwards over the back of the couch. Plopping herself into the armchair closest to the door, Michelle crosses her legs over the arm of the chair and gazes at them impassively. “Hope I wasn't interrupting anything.” 

Felicia smirks at Peter over her shoulder and turns back to face Michelle. “You know the party doesn't start until you get here,” she purrs.

-*-

“I think she just gets off on making me uncomfortable,” Peter offers sheepishly as he changes into his Spider-Man suit. He and MJ are back at their apartment, and he’s the one that finally breaks the long awkward silence that lasted their entire commute back.

“Well, as long as that's the only way she's getting off with you,” MJ mutters from the dining table, where she’s fixated on her laptop. 

He frowns. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, forget it.” She shrugs and continues typing, not looking up at him.

His lips press into a thin line. “We're just friends, MJ. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know you are,” she replies softly.

Peter raises an eyebrow. “But?”

MJ swallows the weird knot in her throat and glances up at him. “But _we_ were friends, too. You and me. We started out as _just friends_. Until we were more than just friends.”

“You mean _are_? We _are_ more than just friends.”

“Yeah, that's what I said.”

Peter blinks, confused, and cocks his head to the side. After a few moments, he gives up on whatever he was considering and shakes his head. “I gotta head out. I’ll be late, so you don’t need to wait up.”

“Meeting up with the Black Cat?”

Peter has tugged the mask over his face, so she can’t read his expression. A beat passes between them, and he finally nods. “Yeah.”

MJ doesn’t say anything and just keeps typing, only she’s writing the same line over and over before deleting it, wishing that Peter would go away just as hard as she hopes that he would stay. She wants him to choose her.

MJ so desperately wants him to pick her over everyone else, even someone like Felicia or the Black Cat, but it makes her feel needy and pathetic. Petty. She doesn't even know why she wants this from him; it's not like she has ever had anyone who would choose her first, unconditionally. 

So why does she want this from him so badly? 

But then he’s gone, out through their window and into the night.

-*-

Michelle doesn’t open Felicia’s latest text, but she can tell from the first line in her notifications that she's inviting her to something, probably to go out clubbing or some party in the Hamptons. She shakes her head to herself and swipes it away. She knows she’s been too distracted with Felicia and needs to get her focus back on the OsCorp investigation.

Michelle finally collects the rest of her mother’s file from her dad’s apartment. She had been putting it off, dreading the idea of being in that place again and having to speak to him. But in the end, all she had to do was stop by during happy hour at the nearest dive bar so her dad would be out of the house.

After combing through the old crumpled notes and receipts, Michelle finally finds the address where her mother's treatments supposedly took place. She is briefly glad that her parents were hoarders who never tossed anything out. The feeling is entirely short-lived, however, when she remembers that _she_ was the only one who ever cleaned and threw out the garbage after her mother got sick. So, she should really thank herself for never bothering with her father’s messy office as a form of passive aggressive protest. 

She thinks she remembers OsCorp sending a car to take her mother to each treatment session, and vaguely recalls the tinted windows and how her mother seemed to get worse after each session.

Whatever was happening during those treatments is the key to everything, and the only way she can find out is to go there and see for herself. Well, maybe not necessarily herself.

-*-

“I don’t know about this, MJ. I mean, an address from an anonymous source whose relative _might_ have been taken advantage of by OsCorp in some cancer research study? And now it turns out there are all those armed guards outside an unmarked building?”

Peter had agreed to scout out the location for her, but MJ hadn't revealed that the anonymous source was herself. She had expected him to find an empty parking lot or something equally useless, but they end up finding the facility much more heavily armed than expected—which only further fuels MJ’s suspicions that OsCorp is definitely up to something nefarious and worth killing to keep secret. 

“Not every lead is a smoking gun. It’s a process. You can’t go in guns blazing and expect to find—”

“But that’s what you’re suggesting," Peter interrupts. "You want me to break into a building you don’t know much about on the _hunch_ that there’s a story?”

Studying the live feed from his suit’s camera on her computer screen, MJ tries to scan the exterior facility through the EDITH databases linked to his suit, but nothing is coming up, not even OsCorp. “No, you’re right,” She finally answers, and hears Peter audibly exhale with relief over the com. “We need to prepare more, get some maps or utility grid plans first. Do you think you can maybe get a hold of a key card now?”

Peter is quiet and she can tell he’s trying to decide how to say something to her. “MJ. What is this really about? What did OsCorp do?”

She cringes at the inevitable question she’s not ready to answer yet, at least not completely. “I just—I can see the cover up, but not the whole picture yet. I just need some more evidence to confirm it,” she replies over the com. She can hear him sigh on the other end.

“You understand why I can't just go in there on a hunch, right? This isn’t like the Frick or taking photos or video through someone's window—this would be actual breaking and entering.”

“Yeah, because _that_ would be the most reckless thing you've ever done on a hunch.” Michelle bites her lip. It was a cheap shot, but she was getting frustrated.

“Droney, two way video, please,” Peter says quietly in a clipped tone. With a whirring sound, the spider-shaped drone that carries the body camera detaches from his suit and turns to face Peter so MJ can see him; his mask is off and it looks like he’s hiding out high above in some tree canopies. Furrowing his brow, he seems to be considering something.

“What do you have against OsCorp?” Peter asks slowly. “Does this… have anything to do with Harry Osborn?”

Michelle tries very hard not to roll her eyes and settles for a withering glare. “Yes, Peter, obviously that’s what’s going on. Harry Osborn broke my heart, and now I want to take down his father’s company so he inherits nothing.” She gives in and rolls her eyes this time. “That’s a joke, nerd. You know I don’t have a heart.”

He stares intently at her on the holographic screen that the drone projects before him, his lips pursed and brows still furrowed. Her fingers are itching to reach through the computer screen and smooth the little crease. “Look, I know it's none of my business, but if this is a personal—”

“It’s not personal,” she lies, looking away from the screen. “There’s something bigger here, something Norman Osborn is involved with, and I have to find out what it is.”

Peter throws his head back, scrubbing at his jaw tiredly. “Why do you have to do this?” 

“I'm an investigative reporter. You know what that means? It means I collect facts, and I figure out the story. And when I determine who the bad guys in the story are, I make sure they get punished. Norman Osborn deserves to be punished for what he did.”**

Peter raises his eyebrows. “What did he do?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out and prove. And you can either help me figure it out or not, but I’m doing it.”

“Is that justice to you? You get to play jury, judge, and enforcer?” 

“Someone has to. How is that different from what you do?”

“I leave the criminals for the police and the authorities!”

“That's assuming the police and our legal system aren't crooked and filled with criminals worse than the muggers you're throwing into the system.” How did this conversation go off the rails so quickly? Michelle growls in frustration.

“So what am I supposed to do, nothing? Just let crime happen?”

“That’s not what I said.” A knot in her throat makes it hard for her to speak, but she’s too distracted by the heat rising up to her ears and presses on. “We’re both doing what we think is right and good, even though there’s no such thing as a completely right or good choice. But I thought we had each other’s backs anyway.”

“We do!”

“Except when you don’t agree with what I’m doing. Either you are willing to do it, or neither of us get to do it? Is that it? Pretty damn convenient ‘partnership’ you’ve set up for us. You know I never question you on Spider-Man stuff, even when I want to.”

“Spider-Man stuff is different, it’s…”

“It's _what_ , Peter? More important? More worthwhile?”

Like how her father's writing aspirations were more important than her mother's dreams of becoming a famous actress? Because writing was ‘serious work’ and no one was going to change the world through dancing around on a stage? 

Catering to her husband's whims and moods while juggling work shifts and raising Michelle, her mother bore it all in silence. Her parents were never equal partners; her mother was her father's housekeeper, personal assistant, and whipping boy; the scapegoat for his failures until Michelle was old enough to become another target. 

“I always have your back with Spider-Man stuff. I think we had different ideas about this partner thing.” MJ’s voice doesn’t sound like herself anymore. “I didn’t realize that when you were offering to help me with my investigations, it was a way for you to control what I do or don’t do.”

Peter throws his hands in the air in frustration, then runs his fingers through his hair a few times. “That’s not—you know that’s not it at all!”

“Then tell me how it is.”

“I just want to protect you, keep you safe!”

“Then help me see what’s inside that OsCorp building, even if you’re just being _my_ guy in the chair and watching my back when I check it out—”

“No! No way. That's too dangerous.”

The silence that follows is an oppressive, lingering presence between them that expands with every second. She knows they've reached a turning point of some kind, but she doesn't know where it leads. All she knows is that she didn't leave her father's house just to walk into another cage; for someone else to tell her what she could or couldn't do, no matter how much he cares about her. “Maybe we should just split up and do our own thing for a while.”

Peter's eyebrows shoot up in alarm. “Split up?”

“Yeah, no more joint runs or whatever. You don't really need a ‘Woman in the Chair’ when you have Karen and EDITH, and, well, maybe I need to stop relying on Spider-Man to do my dirty work for me.”

After some thought, Peter nods, and for some reason that disappoints her. “Yeah, okay. If that's what you want.”

-*-

There’s no way MJ would ever consider infiltrating the OsCorp facility on her own; she's not _that_ reckless nor an idiot. But she _is_ pissed—partly because Peter is right, but more so because she can’t do anything about it. 

She hates feeling this way: powerless and needy, insufficient. What kind of investigator could she be if she kept hiding behind Spider-Man and sending him in to do her job for her? He was the one that caught the Black Cat at the Frick, and the person who actually busted the drug-rings and human traffickers, albeit based on her tip. 

Is she just wasting Spider-Man's time on a farfetched hunch for a personal agenda of hers? Pushing him to go on a wild goose chase when he could be helping and saving people from danger in real time?

Peter has watched friends and allies die in front of him, almost died countless times himself—and even succeeded once—been backstabbed, betrayed, manipulated for his kindness, and psychologically tortured. He hasn't stopped bearing the weight of the world since he was fourteen.

MJ sighs. She doesn't want to be another responsibility on his shoulders. But as a regular, non-superpowered human, there’s not much she can do about it; not unless she learns to handle these things for herself.

-*-

“Black Cat showed up again tonight,” Peter says conversationally as they have one of their rare meals together that week. “At the bank to help _stop_ a robbery instead of, like, committing it.” 

Moving the pasta around her plate, MJ makes a non-committal sound. 

“At least she's not causing trouble, though, right?” he continues, twirling the spaghetti around his fork.

“Yeah, what a martyr, truly a saint of scratching posts." 

"Hey, come on, Em. Cut her some slack."

"Why are you defending her?”

“I wasn't." Peter frowns in confusion. "Wait, I thought you were cool with the Black Cat, the article—”

“She's trying to suck up to Spider-Man,” Michelle announces, struck by an epiphany. “Why else would a cat burglar suddenly start trying to draw attention to herself, particularly from one local web-slinging vigilante? I don't know what she's up to, but—”

“Or maybe she's changed! Or is trying to. Is it so crazy that Spider-Man could inspire someone to stop committing crimes and do some good?” Peter takes a breath. “I mean, I'm risking my life out there every night, it's nice to know it matters to someone who isn't the one getting rescued.”

The silence after Peter finishes talking is unbearable. The AC rattles intermittently as cars horns blare from outside, taunting them in their quiet standoff. Their studio suddenly feels too small, too claustrophobic for the growing bubble of unease forming between them, and for the first time MJ fears she has truly upset Peter. But of all things to get to him, why was questioning the Black Cat's motives the thing to set him off?

“No one is asking you to,” MJ says quietly. “No one is asking you to risk your life every day.”

He frowns, confused and maybe a little hurt. “Gee, thanks, MJ. You really know how to make your boyfriend feel like he's doing something worthwhile.”

Biting her lip, she doesn't know how to explain what she's feeling in a way that makes sense to him, and to herself. She's not jealous or anything like that, she just doesn't like how much he's taking someone else's side, that's all. That's it.

“And just so you know, Spidey groupies have also laid off since Cat started showing up at the scene. She’s not afraid to tell them off, no matter how embarrassing it is.”

“Well I'm glad you found someone who will stick up for you and defend you, because obviously I've been doing fuck all—”

“That's not even close to what I said,” Peter grits back at her, trying not to raise his voice.

“In case you've forgotten, the first time you met her she was stealing artwork worth millions of dollars.”

“Yeah, that was previously stolen by colonizers! You said so yourself, she was just returning the stuff back to their rightful home.”

“For money. It's just a job to her. I doubt she really cares.”

“You always expect the worst from people,” he sighs in frustration, rubbing his face. 

_Except from you_ , she thinks. He's the only person MJ has ever had complete faith in, the only one from whom she has always expected the best. Someone truly _good_.

But what she actually says is, “And you're being fucking naive, Peter.”

He glares back at her with a look she's never seen from him before, at least not directed at her; disillusionment, irritation. MJ bites the inside of her lip to keep it from trembling and juts her chin out in defiance, challenging him to contradict her. But without another word or glance her way, Peter grabs his backpack and steps out onto their fire escape.

“Where are you going?”

But he's gone and MJ is left staring at their open window, the bent up shades rattling in the wind.

-*-

On Saturday, the cover news story is about the Black Cat and Spider-Man evacuating and saving civilians during a row house fire in Rego Park. Declaring ridiculous headlines like “Spidey's Got Cat Scratch Fever!” and dubbing them “NYC’s Super-Power Couple” the tabloids couldn't get enough of the two vigilantes. Michelle has had enough, though.

Peter scoffs. “She doesn't have any super powers. Unless being super reckless is a power!”

He chuckles at his own joke and continues shoveling cereal into his mouth, which MJ finds annoying rather than charming like she usually does. 

“Yeah, everyone knows the only real super power is a self-imposed savior complex,” she mutters, scraping Earth Balance onto her toast harder than necessary. 

“Why are you so angry about a couple stupid tabloid stories?” Peter asks, putting his spoon down. “I thought this would be a good thing. If people think Spider-Man and Black Cat are a thing, they’ll stop bothering you about the photo, right? And they’ll be less likely to connect Spider-Man to your real-life boyfriend.”

What he says makes sense, but MJ can’t help the hollow, anxious feeling in her gut. What exactly did she want—for the world to know that Spider-Man belonged to _her_? That she was his _real_ partner? Was that even true?

In fact, shouldn't he be with someone more like himself? Someone who could be out there with him instead of sitting at home and worrying, someone he wouldn't need to worry about either because they could protect themselves—a truly equal partner.

Michelle hates swinging through the city; it terrifies her. Adrenaline rushes don't do anything for her except signal the onset of a panic attack. But the way Black Cat vaults effortlessly across rooftops and swings through the city on her grappling hooks is just like how Spider-Man webs his way across the sky. It's like they were made for each other.

Michelle wonders if he should be with someone who he can share that life with, instead of it always being this great divide between them. Would he be happier? He would swear up and down that he couldn't be happier than he was with her—her Peter, ever steady and faithful, always so certain. Sometimes his certainty felt like a cage, either trapping her inside its confines or keeping her locked outside of him, unable to get to the core of who he is. Other times, his certainty was her rock, anchoring her to the closest thing to a moral compass that she respects. 

And when he takes Michelle up high above the city, where no one else can go, and holds onto her so tightly; when she feels secure and in control while in Peter's arms… she second guesses herself and questions everything, again.

They don't really see each other for the rest of the week. Michelle stays later at work, and Peter’s gone by the time she gets home. He doesn’t come back until late, and she leaves for work while he’s still asleep. They barely cross paths, and the few quick kisses before rushing out the door dwindle to nothing. 

When Michelle asks him about the uptick in his patrol time, Peter cites some statistics about violent crime rates being higher when it's hot out before tugging on his mask.

A very quiet voice deep inside wonders if Peter has been avoiding her, but Michelle ignores it. She's not needy like that, and she's got work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Paraphrasing of a line that journalist!Peter says in Spider-Man: Noir (2009) 
> 
> Sorry the teaser drawing isn't actually a scene; it's like that Friends DVD cover with them all in bed, ya know?
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	10. Michelle: VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things come to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ bad guy ](https://open.spotify.com/track/2Fxmhks0bxGSBdJ92vM42m?si=H5tWhJKLRCOn5nYy7C22XA) by Billie Eilish
> 
> Posting a little early - thank you for all the comments and kudos! You guys seem to like teh pain...

Hanging his head, Peter lets the water from the showerhead hammer against the back of his neck as he leans against the wall, one arm extended. The water pressure is mediocre to low, just like his mood. He’s not sure how he’s managed to get everyone upset with him, but it should be considered a talent by now. 

Felicia won’t stop texting him to ask why MJ isn’t responding to her messages, but he doesn’t want to ask MJ and get in the middle of whatever is going on between them, which annoys Felicia. Then he misses another catch up call with Aunt May after staying late at SI to finish up a board proposal for Pepper, on top of all his engineering projects in the lab. To top his day off, he gets into a protracted debate with the Black Cat over the morality of taking a cut of the stolen money that they seize while on patrol, and his stance only frustrates the (hopefully) former criminal. 

The argument with the Black Cat makes him late for his date with MJ. He is supposed to meet up with her at eight o'clock for a summer movie night in the park, but they are already halfway through the screening of _Badlands_ by the time he finds her among the sea of moviegoers on picnic blankets. 

He knows it would only make things worse if he blames the Black Cat for his tardiness, so Peter makes up some vague excuse about a delay on his patrol that’s not quite an outright lie; he’s still terrible at lying, especially to MJ. She just shoots him a hurt look but doesn't press the issue, and remains quiet for the rest of the film.

"That was a pretty cool, uh, serial killer movie," Peter says afterwards, helping MJ fold up the blanket they were sitting on. "I read that it was based on a real teenage couple in the late fifties who killed, like, ten people in the midwest."

She doesn’t look at him. "It was a love story." 

"About a violent psychopath who drags his girlfriend on a crime spree?" Peter asks, tucking the folded blanket under his arm.

MJ shrugs, drawing the straps of her canvas picnic tote over her shoulder. "She wanted to go with him, be with him. She knew what he was, and she followed anyway."

"She didn't really have a choice, after her dad died and their house burned down," says Peter, unsure why he sounds so defensive. "Besides, he did all the killing. Maybe her being with him kept him from going further off the deep end."

"Or she fed into their shared fantasy of being this killer couple taking on the world together, fuck everyone else," says MJ, not looking at him. He studies her side profile, and wonders at how long her lashes are and the perfect proportion of her features. "I think she was a sadist, too," she continues, "and finally met someone kindred in him. Or at least, he fit her idealization of the cliched bad boy who chooses her even though he 'could have had any other girl in town'.” 

Peter isn't sure if they're still talking about the movie anymore, and he wishes that his Spider-sense extended to detecting subtext and deciphering his girlfriend's multi-layered film critiques. 

Did MJ think he was the James Dean-like killer who was taking her down a dark path? Or did she see herself as the criminal, and he was the naive accomplice? Neither interpretation makes much sense to Peter, except that MJ really could have anyone she wants and she still chose him. Is that what she’s trying to tell him, to remind him that he’s the lucky one?

Peter and MJ spend the entire way home in silence, occasionally sniping at each other passive aggressively about unrelated and minor annoyances. But it escalates quickly and her anger catches him off guard. He doesn't know what he's done wrong and she won't tell him. He wishes MJ would just talk to him, instead of muttering insults, or swiping at him with barbed comments and retreating before he can react.

She evades his reach whenever he tries to hold her hand, and looks daggers at him when he attempts to kiss her cheek. When they get home, Peter goes straight to the bathroom and slams the door shut harder than he means to, but then decides that he's glad he did. 

MJ thinks she's the only one who can get angry between the two of them, but really, Peter's just better at hiding it. He has to—he once accidentally crushed a brick in his bare hand out of frustration when he first got his powers. So, he has to control his anger and bury it deep inside, extinguish it before it has a chance to hurt someone. But she is getting him pretty close to furious.

Lost in his thoughts, Peter startles when the shower curtain clatters open and MJ steps in behind him, naked. “Did you really think you could just run out in the middle of a fight _to shower_?”

“Come on, give me a break, MJ. It's been a really long day, and, like, a hundred degrees out there. I'm sweaty and dirty.”

He catches the way her eyes slide up and down his body, watching the water splash against his chest and following the foam that dribbles along his neck and down to his legs. The conflict is obvious in her face as arousal and anger make her cheeks flush and her brows knit in frustration.

With a smirk, Peter turns around as if she's not there and starts washing his hair, letting his biceps bulge as he runs his fingers through his soapy hair.

Annoyed that he’s ignoring her, MJ presses her wet and slippery breasts against his back so he can feel the aroused tips against his skin. Still facing away from her, Peter bites his lip, trying to ignore her as he continues showering.

When her fingers start to dig demandingly into the muscles down the sides of his torso, he gruffly turns her around to face away from him and spider-sticks his feet to the tub floor to brace himself. MJ spreads her legs to match his footing and looks back at him over her shoulder with a challenging glint in her eyes.

Peter pulls her hips back towards him and sinks into her, eliciting a deep moan from her. Despite the strain and tension between them, their bodies still fit perfectly together, and he slides his hands appreciatively along her wet curves.

“I'm… still… mad… at you!” she grunts between each thrust. “You can't… always... fuck your way…out of a fight with me… ”

“I’m trying my best to, though,” Peter replies breathlessly, reaching around to play with her clit. The sound she makes is nearly enough to make him cum immediately, but it's the way she starts bucking wildly against him that is going to ruin him.

“Fuck, don't stop. Please, don't stop, I'll do anything... just keep fucking me please, please, please!” MJ gasps, smacking her hand repeatedly against the tiled wall. “Oh, Peter…!”

That's it. He can't hold back any longer, not when she was squirming on his dick like that. With a light warning smack on her right butt cheek, Peter speeds up and starts driving himself into her relentlessly. He lets the frustrations from earlier that night—not just with MJ but all of it—coil in his gut and build until he can’t hold it in any longer.

His senses become an incomprehensible blur of noises and colors so he tries to focus on one thing at a time: the hot water hitting his back, the sounds of their fumbling echoing in the bathroom, her perfect ass bouncing against his hips.

Every muscle starts to clench and her thighs begin to quiver. When he feels her flutter and tighten around him, Peter quickly pulls out and lets his cum spill down the shower drain. 

The impulse to reach out for her and take her into his arms seizes him for a moment, but he manages to resist it. She doesn't want tenderness when she gets like this; only gruff, demanding pleasure. 

Shaking his wet hair out of his eyes, Peter gets out of the shower and starts toweling himself dry, leaving MJ behind, still wet and panting.

-*-

Michelle stays at the office late again to finish writing up her research notes for the broader investigation teams; she’s been consistently staffed on at least half a dozen stories since the heist article, sought after for her methodical research and attention to detail, as well as her imaginative yet logical takes on stories. 

Her editor even asked MJ if she'd ever consider Empire State’s School of Journalism, and offered to write her a letter of recommendation, citing her raw instincts and gutsiness. 

“There are fellowships that provide financial and editorial support to complete ‘ambitious’ projects,” adds Sally. “I suspect you might have some pet projects that could benefit from that.”

In any case, MJ is definitely not staying at work late to avoid Peter. He’s probably not even home; this was prime patrol time. Michelle _is_ maybe avoiding an inevitable conversation she has to have with him. No, that sounds too definitive and sentimental—she’s been putting off a responsible discussion they need to have now that summer is winding down. 

On top of it all, Harry Osborn starts texting her again, starting with forwarding that week’s viral "SpideyCat" _(ugh)_ photo: Spider-Man swinging in the air and holding onto the Black Cat, whose hair is undone from her usual high ponytail, whipping around in the wind and covering her face. They cut an impressive and dramatic silhouette. 

_You deserve better_

_Drinks @my place? I’m a good listener_

_Among other things ;)_

It grates on her pride that Harry thinks Spider-Man has replaced her or whatever, and that she’s somehow in a weakened emotional state and therefore easy pickings now. It grates on her more that he isn’t far off the mark.

The subway car is almost empty by the time it departs from the last express stop to embark on the final stretch of local stops into Brooklyn. The isolation and loneliness is familiar, almost comforting to MJ, as listless as it also makes her feel. She stares at her phone, scrolling through the same feed and ignoring the same unread messages.

Her last encounter with Felicia left her with a strange mixed feeling of suspicion and, inexplicably, embarrassment, so MJ hasn't responded to any of her texts since. But the longer she leaves them unread, the more daunting it seems to open them and finally deal with them—deal with _her_. A pissed Felicia feels like a time bomb on her hands, and MJ isn't ready to handle her yet.

Late night construction on the subway tracks causes her train to reroute and skip her stop, so she has to walk home through a long stretch of shady blocks. She hunches her shoulders and holds her bag close to her body, reminding herself that this neighborhood isn't any different from the projects in Queens where she grew up.

Except she isn't familiar with these dark and empty streets, nor the strangers smoking in the shadows. She is annoyed with herself for wearing a pencil skirt today. She's annoyed at the gross kissing noises that the creepy men lurking on stoops keep making at her, and the long stretches of unlit blocks and empty construction sites between her and home.

An unsettling feeling crawls down her spine when Michelle realizes that she’s still being watched. She crosses the street so that her shadow falls in front of her and she can see if anyone is following her. They are.

Keeping her breathing steady, she quickens her pace as fast as she dares without tipping off her stalkers. Her breath catches a few times as panic sets in, and her sweat feels cold and clammy on her neck despite the hot summer night. Michelle wishes she had a giant hoodie to cover her entire body, no matter how hot it was out; anything to shield her from the disgusting feeling of being leered at.

Two of her pursuers quickly make to flank her on both sides in order to steer her off the main street, and the sick heavy feeling inside her stomach grows. She wants to throw up. She knows she has moments before her own panic takes control.

With a deep inhale, Michelle swings and hits her bag as hard as she can against the asshole on her left and takes off running. Her lungs are burning as she races toward the next crosswalk, unable to spare a second to grab the pepper spray in her bag. It probably fell out when she swung her bag at the first attacker, she realizes with dismay.

A sharp pain wracks her scalp as someone grabs her by the hair and pulls her backwards. Michelle stumbles and another hand grips onto her arm like a vice. Folding her arms close to her chest, Michelle twists and turns to get out of her attackers’ grasp, and punches the first one she sees. There's three of them, and the bile in her throat threatens to choke her as she realizes she can't outrun or fight all of them.

She isn't the only one who notices her odds, and the tallest of her attackers reaches out to grab her. Without thinking, Michelle wraps both arms around his extended one, lodging her shoulder beneath his armpit to create a fulcrum. She drops to her knees, rolling her shoulder as she uses her torque and body weight to throw him over her head—just like she'd practiced with Felicia. 

Shocked that she pulled that off, MJ stupidly gapes at her attacker staggering on the asphalt instead of running, and it's too late when she sees the two remaining shadows looming over her shoulders, long and menacing slants cutting across the empty street.

Fuck. Fuck shit fuck.

Whatever they decide to do, Michelle makes up her mind to attack the one on her right with everything she's got, and braces herself. But with a surprised yelp, her assailants drop back, and their looming shadows disappear. 

She turns around to find one of them unconscious on the ground, and the other guy pinned up to a utility pole by a black clawed hand around his neck.

“Black Cat?” Michelle gasps, her eyes darting from the woman in a black suit to the man choking in her grasp. “What are you doing here?”

With a quick jab using the heel of her hand, Black Cat strikes the guy just below the chin, snapping his head back and knocking him out. He slumps to the ground, and she casually steps around him to come closer to Michelle. “Nice shoulder throw. Took down the biggest one first using a drop—that was smart.”

“You were watching me? Why didn't you do anything?”

“You looked like you had it under control.”

“No, I didn't! I did _not_ have that under control!” With a gruff exhale, Michelle runs her fingers through her frizzing hair, her heart still racing painfully with fear and adrenaline. “There were three of them! There's no way I could have fought all of them—I didn't!” 

“Yeah, so then I jumped in. What's the problem?”

The problem is that Michelle is terrified out of her mind and all alone—or so she thought. The problem is how close she had gotten to being assaulted, if it weren’t for her rescuer. The problem is that she is still weak on her own, despite what she desperately wants to believe.

“Did Spider-Man send you to follow me?” asks MJ.

The edge of Black Cat’s upper lip curls unpleasantly, and she actually looks a little displeased. “I have my own patrol routes without Spider, you know. I’m not his little sidekick.”

“Patrol? You mean window shopping for your next heist?”

With an affronted scoff, Black Cat puts a hand on her hip and juts her jaw out at Michelle. “Right. But the problem is, I just can't choose which jewelry store or art gallery to hit up next in this neighborhood. Maybe the one next to that meth-slash-crack house? Or behind that empty garbage dumpster over there, the one with all the used needles littered about? I guess I'll just have to troll the streets for assholes following and harassing women at this time of night, for shits and giggles, until I can make up my mind.”

Feeling her cheeks burn, Michelle sheepishly mumbles out an apology, looking away. The other woman rolls her eyes, but holds a gloved hand out to her. “Whatever. Let's get out of here.”

When Michelle takes her hand, Black Cat yanks her in close. “Hold on tight,” she purrs in MJ's ear as she tightens her grip around her. “I mean it. I'm not as strong as your Spider-boytoy, so you're gonna have to hold on like your life depends on it. Because it will.”

Black Cat’s arms actually feel strong and secure around MJ, but unlike Spider-Man, there's a soft lushness to her as their chests press against each other. Instead of hard planes of muscles, the Black Cat is all supple curves, and MJ's not sure where to put her hands. 

“Yeah, I know the drill. Don't get too, you know, excited, lady.” MJ tries to sound confident but her voice comes out in a breathless gasp. Her skirt is riding up her thighs as she tries to adjust herself onto the other woman’s hip.

Black Cat bares her teeth in a perfect smile. “I definitely can't promise that, kitten—I'm already excited. I have a thing for long gorgeous legs.”

MJ can't tell if she's just teasing her, or playing some sort of longer game. The uncertainty makes her even more uncomfortable, so she just scowls.

“You're so cute when you pout,” Black Cat whispers close in MJ’s ear, her breath hot on her neck. Then, without warning, she shoots a hook into the darkness and propels both of them up onto some scaffolding high above the streets. 

MJ almost slips from her grasp, but the Black Cat catches her in time and digs her claws into the building’s facade with her other hand for purchase. Scrambling to sit against the wall and furthest from the scaffolding’s edge, MJ exhales deeply and attempts to retie her hair into a bun, which has come loose and messy during the altercation. It takes her a few tries until her hands are steady enough to do it right. 

MJ looks up at the other woman, who is standing with her hands on her hips, and asks, “How do your claws work?” 

“My claws?” 

“Yeah, how do you control the blades? Switch from lethal to non-lethal?“

Black Cat studies MJ for a moment, her eyes difficult to read through the tinted goggles. “Steel microfilaments,” she finally replies, splaying her hand out before them to demonstrate. “They form retractable claws at the tip of each finger when I flex.”

The vigilante opens and closes her fist, the sharpened tips forming and disappearing instantly.

“Does the flexing trigger something? Like a magnetic surge that condenses the filaments?” Slowly, Michelle rises back to her feet, tugging and smoothing out her skirt.

“Something like that. Interested in becoming a costumed vigilante? You seem to know an awful lot about the tech.”

Michelle shrugs. “I’ve... tinkered with Spider-Man’s suit before.”

“Yeah? Was that before or after you stripped it off him?”

“It's not like that,” Michelle replies exasperatedly. “We're not…we just work together.”

“Maybe you should tell that to Spider,” the Black Cat suggests. “Unless you’d rather keep him… dangling.” 

Getting right into her face, Black Cat hovers her clawed index finger over MJ's neck, slowly tracing a line along her left carotid artery. The blade barely skates the tender expanse of her throat; if MJ swallows the spit gathering in her mouth like she wants to, the tip would certainly nick her skin.

“With my claws, I could make it painless,” Black Cat whispers huskily, stilling her sharp finger right beneath MJ's chin. MJ holds her breath. “So quick you wouldn't even realize what just happened, and then… nothing.” Black Cat drops her hand from MJ’s throat to ghost all five claws along her ribcage, sending a cold shiver down MJ’s spine. When she rests her splayed hand against MJ’s stomach, the unsheathed fingertips press against her belly. “Or, I could make it slow and agonizing. Gutted like a fish. Nasty way to go.”

Would she actually hurt her? MJ wonders, ignoring the unsettling chill that the Black Cat instills in her. The other woman is still smiling, but it's too wide and plastic-looking, her entire demeanor menacing. 

“Or maybe if I slash up your face,” Black Cat continues, running her bladed fingers up by the side of MJ's face and trailing them over her head. “Do you think Spider-Man would still think you’re so pretty? Do you think he'd still be so obsessed with you? Or would he finally let you go?” 

Trying to stand as still as possible, MJ inhales sharply, willing herself to stop shaking, but her breath flutters and she can't fill her lungs enough.

“Hey, Cat.”

Both women turn toward the voice and end up facing Spider-Man who's perched on an adjacent outcropping. He's waving back at them jovially, but MJ can see the tension in his shoulders and stance. 

“Thanks for, uh, watching out for miss… girl who kissed me?”

MJ would roll her eyes if she wasn’t still so unnerved by what just transpired between her and the Black Cat, who has since retracted her claws and thrown an arm casually around MJ’s shoulders. 

“Hey, lover. Don’t worry, I've got her. You can go back and call the cops on those creeps. We knocked them all out, you're welcome.”

“What? No, give her here—” 

Spider-Man lands next to them on the same scaffolding level, his arm extended toward MJ.

Black Cat tightens her hold on MJ and steers her slightly away from him. “You want me to finish the perps off _for good,_ instead of you webbing them up for the cops?”

“Cat!"

“Spider!” she shouts back, smiling cheekily while he quietly fumes.

MJ doesn't understand the look that passed between them, but she can feel that there's something unspoken, a conversation they've had before.

With a frustrated growl, Spider-Man relents. “Fine. I'll web them and you take her somewhere safe. But Cat, if anything happens to her—”

“I’ll get her back to her _boyfriend_ in one piece, don't you worry, Spider. I can tell him you send your regards.” She winks at MJ, who still can't tell if she is a hostage or a prize.

-*-

“Did the Black Cat just threaten me tonight?”

MJ has been waiting up for Peter since she got home, after the Black Cat dropped her off a block down from their apartment. 

“She was threatening me by threatening you,” Peter replies darkly. “I'm sorry you got caught in the middle of it.”

“ _I'm_ in the middle? Of what, pray tell, _Spider_?”

“Huh?”

“What was that all about tonight? What’s going on between...”

Peter shakes his head. “It’s… nothing. She’s been wanting me to help her with something, and she kinda gets like that when she doesn’t get her way.”

Torn between her instinct to dig in and ask more questions to find out the truth at all costs, and her debilitating fear of the answers she might get, MJ just nods and wills herself to let the whole thing drop. 

She silently watches the dark outline of Peter’s silhouette as he changes out of his suit, and eyes the hard and rippling lines of his muscles in the dim light. She wants to touch him and pull him close, but she stays put in bed, her head resting on her arm; he’s probably too far out of her reach anyway.

With her eyes shut, she listens to the familiar sounds of his routine as he takes a shower, eats some leftovers, and changes the bandages on some still healing wounds. MJ pretends to be asleep when he tucks the sheet over her, and again when he slips out through the window in the middle of the night.

-*-

MJ thinks a lot about their past as she feels the end nearing, hovering over them like twilight on the horizon. She especially likes thinking about their first time having sex. She remembers how much Peter blushed afterwards, shyly trying to catch her eye as they got dressed and smiling ridiculously every time he succeeded. 

In that moment, it had felt like they were sharing a secret between just the two of them, one that was more exhilarating than his masked vigilante secret. 

Plus, who would have guessed that sweet, innocent Peter Parker would be so damn good in bed? Even early on he already knew how to squeeze and stroke her in all the right places. MJ questioned him on it once after a particularly invigorating lay, teasingly accusing him of having more experience than he let on.

“Oh, I just use my, um, enhanced senses to listen to your heart rate and detect what you... like,” he admitted abashedly, resting his arms behind his head. “Also, I have more nerve endings in my skin than regular humans, so I can feel everything more... acutely? And I have pretty good, uh, motor control of my tongue,” he muttered, his entire face scarlet to the tips of his ears. 

Then MJ wrapped her fingers around his bicep and grinned ridiculously back at him. “You are such a nerd.”

“Plus, practice makes perfect,” he shrugged good-naturedly, rolling over on top of her. MJ liked it when he was on top of her like that, with his weight pinning her down as she wrapped her arms and legs around him. She could pretend he was trapped in her embrace and could never leave, could never walk into danger, and would always be in her arms like that forever.

But nothing lasts forever. The end of something feels near, and she can't quite figure out what it is or why she feels this way. Fighting is supposed to be normal for couples, right? What about the worrying, the jealousy, the time purposely spent apart?

They had parted for college with no promises, but every time she was back in New York, they always found their way to each other again. A small, ridiculous part of her hoped that they could go on doing that forever: share themselves with each other without surrendering entirely, without losing themselves and who they are when they are apart from each other. 

She sighs, deflated. MJ just thought they would have more time. After everything they've gone through, she really thought that if they ever finally got together, it would last longer than a few months. 

When they eventually break up, it's so anticlimactic that MJ isn't sure if it really happened.

“If you don't want… if you don't want to be with—we don't have to do this, Em.” His big brown eyes are pleading with her to contradict him, but she can't.

This feels inevitable, deserved, and it should be him that ends it. She's been hot and cold with him, anxious about what's to come, and it's almost a relief when it happens. The sooner she dealt with the worst, the sooner it would pass, right?

“I just thought we'd make it longer than this, but what do I know?” Peter chuckles ruefully, echoing her sentiment. 

“How long did you think we'd last?”

The look he gives her breaks her heart. “Doesn't matter, does it?”

The silence stretches to fill the room.

“Just one thing,” he finally says. “What did I do wrong?”

Unable to meet his sad gaze, Michelle shakes her side bangs over her eyes. “Nothing, Peter. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just… maybe it's not the right time for us. I mean, summer's almost over anyway.”

Living together in a studio apartment doesn't afford them any space away from each other, but Michelle needs to be alone right now. It makes her feel like a coward, but if she sees his face, she won't be able to hold it together any longer.

Their front door closes with a soft click that sounds like a gunshot going off in her head when Michelle leans back against it from the outside. She lets herself slide down to sit on the floor, still resting against the door, and stares down the empty hallway. 

She had expected to feel relief after they break up, like a pressure valve finally getting released, punctured, the agonizing heat hissing out. She was supposed to feel lighter, free, no longer dogged by the paranoia and insecurities that came with dating a superhero. She was supposed to shed the guilt from feeling paranoid and insecure in the first case, because Michelle Jones isn’t one of _those_ girls; she’s supposed to be too cool for that. 

Instead, she just feels hollow inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! A little subversion of the iconic MJ door scene in Amazing Spider-Man #122 (1973)... will Michelle pass her next door scene opportunity??


	11. Michelle: VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle receives some unwanted attention, and not enough wanted attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [Still Want You](https://open.spotify.com/track/0aDPNOG0RKT9NxNe5gT6Oa?si=xZRkO4QOT1yt88_ooxEv4w) by ZHU
> 
> Thank you for the comments, kudos, and DMs on the last chapter! You guys seem to love/hate teh heart pain more than the smut?? 
> 
> Here, have some more of both xoxo

They still have the most incredible sex while they're broken up, MJ has to admit. 

She had hoped they could at least revert to how they were before this relationship experiment, back to that familiar, delicate tightrope of picking and choosing what parts of each other they were willing to give and take. But something feels different between them now.

Maybe it's because each time really could be their last, or maybe it's because there's no reason to hold back with each other anymore, but the lazy morning sex and soft touches in the middle of the night have been replaced by hot, intense, and fast fucking. Hungry fucking. 

Peter is rougher than he usually is with her, or at least used to be, and sometimes even leaves her unfinished. 

“Next time, promise!” he calls over his shoulder as he tucks himself back into his pants and takes off before MJ can even find her underwear. He never used to leave until she was finished, but now he seems distracted and almost eager to get somewhere else. It leaves her aching for him all day, but she can't just text him for a lunchtime quickie anymore. 

By mid-afternoon MJ caves and texts him anyway. It takes longer for him to reply than she's used to.

_Sorry can't, busy._

Staring at his text, MJ reminds herself that Peter doesn't owe her anything, and that it's just like when they're apart at school, unattached and without any expectations. 

In fact, she doesn’t _really_ need him at all. 

When MJ gets home that night to their empty apartment, she toes off her heels and groans with relief from pressing her aching feet flat against the floor. Peeling her sweaty clothes off, she leaves them in a pile beside the bed and crawls under the sheets. 

Sliding her fingers into the slickness forming between her legs, MJ stares up at the ceiling, panting and overheating in the dark as she works herself into a frenzy. It's not the same without him, but it'll hold her over for now.

She shivers when she feels it coming on, the intense yet brief hot pleasure of her peak, and lets out a strangled gasp. But a clammy exhaustion quickly settles over her, sucking all the warmth and satisfaction out of her bones. 

Afterwards, MJ tosses and turns, looking for the cool spots on her pillow, and tries to fall asleep without checking her phone again.

-*-

When they're not fucking, MJ barely sees Peter anymore, especially during the week. He’s been leaving for patrol earlier and coming back later; sometimes dawn is already rising when she feels the bed sink down beside her. 

She doesn’t open her eyes, but she can tell Peter is still awake, watching the back of her head until their morning alarms go off.

As loathe as she is to admit it, it all starts distracting her at work. Personal life shit. It’s embarrassing. 

MJ zones out during meetings and conference calls, replaying past conversations endlessly, imagining how they should have gone and the perfect cutting remark she should have dropped. She hasn't missed any deadlines or messed up any assignments, but she can feel herself slipping, gradually not caring as much as she used to. 

What's the point anyway? Corruption and injustice will always exist as long as mankind does, and anyone would prefer a comforting lie over the painful truth; people will always look away from the facts if it's easier, if it hurts less. Michelle veers between nihilism, apathy, and procrastination all day, unable to motivate herself for even simple administrative tasks.

She also needs to stop obsessively checking the news for Spider-Man and his new _busty sidekick;_ she has to stop constantly refreshing her newsfeed for any mention of New York’s _favorite supercouple_.

The only thing keeping her focused at work is the upcoming OsCorp gala. Supposedly to unveil some new charity, the event will be one of Norman Osborn's rare in-person public appearances, so Michelle knows she has to be there. It will be her first opportunity to see Norman in person and look him in the face. She wants to see if he exhibits any symptoms of this mysterious illness of his and observe his behavior, live and unedited; track what he eats and drinks, how he acts and speaks, everything.

Of course, Harry uses an invitation to the gala as his date as an opening to start texting her again. She declines, telling him that she’d attend the event through a press pass from work, and he tells her to suit herself.

But Michelle _is_ a little worried about being able to convince her editor to let her go to the gala, notwithstanding her ‘page six history’. Sally wouldn't hold that against her still, not after all the good work she's done this summer, she reassures herself. In any case, she'd rather grovel to Sally than need Harry Osborn for anything.

She knows she only has his attention because he perceives her standoffish attitude as some sort of challenge. When they first met at his party, Harry had assumed Michelle was already interested in him and that he would get his way. It was a foregone conclusion; he had decided he wanted her and that was enough. He thought he didn’t need to win her over, no six-step plans required.

But when Harry invited her to stay behind after his new year's party to “watch some Fellini films” in his room, she declined, making him scowl and ask, “What, are you on your period or something?” But then he quickly flashed a charming smile and graciously declared that he wouldn't mind "parting the red sea" because he was a "pretty enlightened guy".*

Despite how curtly Michelle refused again, Harry kept pursuing her afterwards anyway, from absurd 2AM booty call texts that he was clearly blasting out to multiple girls—who were likely in closer proximity to him at ESU than she was while at Harvard—to cocky comments on her social media posts (“thanks for the pic, gorgeous”). 

Fortunately, he stopped bothering her as much after the photo of her kissing Spider-Man came out, so she hasn't had to worry about him all summer—until now.

Two days before the OsCorp gala, Sally calls a staff meeting and announces that FrontLine didn’t receive any press passes to the event after all—or rather, their passes had been rescinded without any explanation. 

“So only news media outlets in OsCorp’s pocket will be allowed at the closed event,” Sally fumes. "Fucking unbelievable."

Fucking unbelievable is right. Michelle really doesn’t want to go back to Harry now; her pride can barely take it. But with only two days before the event, he is her only viable option. 

The prospect of spending an evening with him, which was doing exactly what he wanted, fills Michelle with resentment. She's exhausted just thinking about dealing with his flirting all night in between his usual subtle digs at her under the guise of “just joking around.” When that doesn't work, he'll tease her for being prudish and "stuck up, but in a good way" while slyly offering to help "fix" her.

But the most insulting assumption Harry makes is thinking that she is the kind of girl that needs a guy's validation badly enough to tolerate insults. Michelle is _not_ her mother.

After an entire day of deliberation and constantly second-guessing herself, Michelle finally texts Harry back about the gala, and he tells her to meet him at a cafe in midtown near OsCorp for lunch the next day.

She is surprised that he chooses a casual grab-and-go type of lunch spot, given that he prefers meeting girls at inappropriately expensive restaurants—which, Michelle suspects, is because it's harder for a girl to turn down a guy after he’s just dropped four hundred dollars on her meal.

The cafe has some seating by the windows, which is where Harry is waiting for her. He nods at her casually, as if he had forgotten that they're supposed to meet up—as if this isn't the first time Michelle has agreed to see him in person since New Year's, as if he hasn't been trying embarrassingly hard to get her alone with him all year.

Last February, Harry had dozens of red roses delivered to her dorm room at Harvard, accompanied by a slinky black dress in a box. The accompanying card said to meet him at some fancy restaurant on Valentine's Day while wearing the dress; a car would pick her up. It was as if he learned how to pursue women from some creepy middle-aged businessman with a mistress. Then again, Michelle reminded herself, he probably had.

Just after she texted Harry to refuse his presumptuous dinner plans ("no thanks, patrick bateman"), a notification had popped up and her heart fluttered when she saw that it was a text from Peter. At the time, MJ had just recently gotten over the embarrassment of running into him at Harry's party and they had just started talking again. But she was still anxious about Peter finally getting exasperated with her, afraid he would finally cut her out of his life. 

Instead, Peter had sent her a photo of himself and eight year-old Morgan Stark grinning and holding up Valentine-themed drawings of the Avengers, followed by a message:

_Happy valentine's day (massacre), MJ! =) =) =)_

The acrid taste of bile rises up in Michelle's throat now, reminding her that she fucked up, that she gave into her weaker instincts and pushed Peter away when things got difficult, when she got scared.

So here she is, hate-eating a sandwich while Harry Osborn eyes her makeup and work dress approvingly, making her want to smear mustard all over his clean-cut prickish face and wipe that douchey smirk away.

“Look, I'll go with you to the gala as friends, but it's not a date.”

Harry chuckles like she is missing something obvious. “Well, my plus one is for a _date,_ so…”

MJ narrows her eyes. “Then you have to introduce me to your father, and I get to interview him one-on-one.”

Harry actually blanches at that, his face stricken. “My father's a really important guy, in case you've been living under a rock. He's not going to meet with just anyone.”

“Not even his son's _date_? That's pretty savage.” Michelle knows she's picking at a sore spot for Harry, but she'll press on the wound until it bleeds if she has to. “But if you can't even manage that, maybe it's not really worth going—”

“But I thought you cared about your career?” Harry interrupts. “The journalism thing? You'd be the only reporter from FrontLine at the gala. Thought you'd be a little more _appreciative_...”

“I'm not hooking up with you,” Michelle snaps. “And I'm wearing my own clothes,” she adds, remembering the dress from Valentine's Day.

Harry frowns as he eyes her up and down. “Not if you're meeting my father.” If it is possible, she hates the way he's coldly assessing her now more than when he leers at her approvingly. “He's really specific about what a proper girl is supposed to be like. You'll need to look more, I dunno, like you belong there.”

Wadding up the foil from her finished sandwich, Michelle gets up to leave. “Forget it, this was a mistake.”

Harry grabs her by the arm to keep her from leaving. “Whoa, whoa, come on, Michelle. Calm down.”

Shaking him off, she starts cleaning up the remnants of her lunch without a word.

Harry taps his fingers impatiently on the table. “Just sit down. You look crazy. And you're making a scene.”

She snorts at him. “You wish. You're not worth making a scene over.”

Harry stops tapping his fingers and stands up abruptly, his chair screeching as it slides back. “Is it Spider-Man? Is he why you won’t—why we haven’t—are you fucking that freak?” he splutters angrily, waving at the ceiling absurdly. 

MJ straightens up to her full height, which, in her heels, made her marginally taller than Harry. Her eyes narrow dangerously. “Just because Spider-Man saves me one time, you assume I’m sleeping with him?”

He laughs humorlessly, casting a condescending glare at her. “Don’t give me some bullshit feminist pussy lecture on how chicks and dicks can be ‘just’ friends. There’s no way Spider-Man is helping you for free—if you haven’t fucked him, then he’s expecting you to,” Harry assures her patronizingly. “The kiss was just a down payment. Let me tell you something, Michelle. Friendship is not what a guy wants from a girl.”

“Yeah, you've made that abundantly clear.” 

Harry and Michelle stare at each other in a strange stand-off in the middle of the café as bustling office workers maneuver around them to get their lunch. She's seething, frustrated with having to deal with Harry, and even more frustrated with herself for needing something from him. Harry, however, seems elated that she's so fixated on him, even if in anger; as if getting some of her attention, even when irritated, is better than nothing at all.

“MJ?”

She turns to the voice and comes face to face with Peter, who has just finished paying at the register, his Stark Industries lab coat hanging over the crook of his elbow. Michelle glares back at Harry. No wonder he chose this low-key eatery for their lunch.

“A lot of OsCorp people grab lunch here,” Harry shrugs nonchalantly, but he can't even hide his self-satisfied smirk. “I guess Stark employees do, too.” He turns to Peter. “Hey, Pete. Here to pick up your girlfriend?”

Peter looks at her, then at Harry. “No, we're not… no. Just grabbing some lunch.” He raises a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of soda at them. 

If MJ had to guess, it's probably a Cuban with extra pickles, toasted and pressed flat, just the way he likes it. She nods awkwardly at him. “Hey.”

Peter nods back with raised eyebrows, like he's passing by an acquaintance at work or on campus. It makes her stomach knot and lurch. “Hi. Sorry, I gotta get back to work—” 

"Yeah, of course." Biting the inside of her lip, MJ fights to keep her face neutral, but catches herself wringing her thumb nervously.

"Parker, you coming to the gala too? I'm sure one of the caterers has an extra tux if you need to borrow one," Harry calls out as Peter heads for the door.

Ignoring him, Peter stops and turns to MJ one last time before leaving. “The, uh, lentil soup here is really good,” he says, swallowing whatever it is he actually wants to say. “You should try it out. If you want. To have lentils.” 

She nods again. “Okay. Lentils.”

“Okay. Cool. See you around, MJ.” 

Michelle stares at Peter's broad back as he walks away, his head hanging low.

-*-

“Fucking hell, MJ!”

Peter is pissed, and she likes it. She feels like she should feel bad about liking it, but she doesn't.

“A little warning next time? Or maybe try not to meet up with other guys where I usually get my lunch, if you can help it?” he growls, pacing back and forth along the narrow space between their bed and the window.

MJ wants to tell him that it wasn't like that at all, that Harry had chosen the cafe, and that, until today, she had no idea where Peter got lunch from when she wasn't meeting him for midday quickies. 

But the way Peter is seething with anger kind of, sort of, _really_ excites her. He deserves to feel how furious he's made her, deserves to feel the broiling she feels in her stomach every time she sees another cover story about the Black Cat and Spider-Man together. It's petty and illogical, but she doesn't care.

What frustrates her most is that she can't admit how she feels, not even to herself, because Michelle Jones doesn't get _jealous_ ; jealousy comes from a place of insecurity and possessiveness, and she is above all that. She's _supposed_ to be above all that.

Peter stops pacing and faces her, still breathing heavily, but there's no hostility in his big brown eyes. “I know I can't make you do anything, MJ. It's not my place to. But please, for my sake, I'm not ready to see—”

She interrupts him with a hard kiss, her palms against his chest. He closes his eyes and deepens the kiss, throwing his arms tight around her waist as his mouth makes its way down her neck. Tugging at his hair, she chases his lips, and soon they're running their hands frantically all over each other.

MJ is running out of breath but she doesn't want to stop kissing him; it has been almost a week since they were last together like this but it has felt infinitely longer. She wants to savor each second of anticipation now, but also desperately wants to feel Peter inside her again.

He reaches over his head to pull off his shirt while MJ hurriedly undoes his jeans and throws them somewhere on the other side of the room. A groan escapes from her lips when his muscles flex under her hands, and he has the audacity to smirk as he reaches for her.

Peter picks her up with ease and dumps her unceremoniously onto their dingy mattress, but she hooks her legs around his and pulls him down with her. They kiss feverishly and grab at each other, his fingers digging into her thighs and tangling in her hair as she hungrily slides her hands up and down his muscled back.

Not bothering to take off her dress, Peter reaches under MJ’s skirt and yanks her underwear down her legs, tossing it on the floor behind him. Then he flips her over onto her stomach and holds her down by the hips, pressing kisses over the fabric along her shoulder blade and down her spine. MJ writhes in pleasure, but the anticipation is killing her.

When she hears the crinkle of a condom wrapper, MJ looks back at him over her shoulder and shakes her head. She is on the pill but they had always used condoms for extra peace of mind; today, though, she just wants to feel Peter raw and completely. She wants to feel his anger and frustration with her; she wants him to fill her with it.**

He raises his eyebrows at her, but flicks the foil aside and pulls her closer. He hikes her dress up above her waist, exposing her ass and pussy as she bends over for him. Peter grunts when he pushes roughly into her, making MJ moan into the sheets. 

He cards his fingers through her hair and tugs to pull her head back. “You like that?”

She nods eagerly, unable to find the words. The feeling of Peter inside of her again, his thickness stretching and filling her, makes her tremble. Then he starts thrusting, and it feels so good she has to muffle her squeals into a pillow. She still wants him so much, and she hates herself for it, for letting her body and impulses take over, for losing control. But she doesn't think can ever stop wanting Peter even if she tried.

They're just getting the most out of each other before the summer ends, MJ reminds herself; then they'll be hundreds of miles apart and it won't matter what she wants. 

-*-

MJ wakes up alone in the middle of the night with a sheet carefully tucked over her. The sweat has cooled on her body, making her feel clammy and used up, and her mouth is dry. She still feels raw and well-fucked, but the cold sense of unease settles back in her chest as she stares at the empty side of the bed. 

Reaching down between her legs, MJ slides a finger inside her still-throbbing cunt, making Peter's cum gush out and dribble down her inner thighs. It makes her feel really good and dirty, so she slides another slippery finger in.

But then _Spider-Man's slut_ echoes in her head, from one of the messages she got after the Bugle photo debacle, or maybe it was a comment on the article online—she doesn't remember. The words flash in her mind, condemning her _: Spider-Man's slut, Spider-Man's slut, Spider-Man's slut. How thick is his web fluid?! Does he keep the mask on during...?_

She squeezes her eyes shut, willing the words not to have any effect on her, and counts her breaths. If Felicia were in her shoes, she would laugh it off and probably say something like, “Damn right!” or maybe she'd say, “More like Spider-Man is _my_ slut!”

Except MJ wasn't his anything anymore, and neither did he belong to her. So what did they just do? Why did she want him to finish inside of her like that? Maybe to tell him without telling him that she wasn't sleeping with anyone else? To mark her territory? 

Watching the neon light from across the street cast shadows in their apartment, MJ curls up in bed and listens to the rain hitting the windowsill, the calm punctuated by the traffic honking as tires roll across the wet asphalt. 

The summer heatwave has broken with the rain, and it feels like like waking up with a sudden gasp after a long fever dream. A thin chill creeps beneath the hot, muggy air that settles on her skin like a clammy shroud. Reality is tapping on the window, and the lusty haze of their summer paradise dissipating with the last bits of sunlight.

MJ rolls her eyes at her own melancholy, tossing and turning as she tries to fall back asleep. The gala is tomorrow, and she’ll need all the rest she can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * One of my girlfriends once hooked up with a Brooklyn hipster dude who took out her tampon and said "now it's my turn" and called himself enlightened for it. Be safe kids, it's wild out there.
> 
> ** Seriously, be safe!
> 
> Thoughts? Concerns? Comments??
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	12. Michelle: IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the prom episode, y’all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Touch](https://open.spotify.com/track/2ylVfK4pVfeSV4zxieyT2B?si=VTtRSJxpQo-n3babeZD6xQ) by Shura
> 
> Aaahhh posting early this week since the last chapter was shorter than usual, and because I couldn't hold myself back any longer...
> 
> Let me know what you think! Comments make me overeager to post :P

Harry sidles up next to Michelle and puts a hand on her shoulder to steer her attention to the main entrance of the gala. “Whoa. Do you know her?”

“Look, when I said I’d go with you to this thing as a friend, I didn’t mean I’d listen to you rank every woman we see based on hotness,” MJ snaps, shrugging his hand off. She knows he’s doing it on purpose to get a rise out of her, thinking he could maybe make her jealous by talking about other women and their respective levels of attractiveness. Instead, it just triggers her impulse to correct and criticize him. 

Harry shakes his head, and his smug grin is too knowing for her comfort. “Damn, Michelle, do you have to fight me on everything? Just look at her, will you?”

MJ sighs exasperatedly and turns to look at the woman he pointed out, who is facing away from the two of them. She seems familiar, but in the way that all busty and leggy blondes look alike, like the kind of woman MJ expects to see in a music video or lounging in some billionaire tech magnate’s cabana in the Maldives… 

Not on Peter Parker's arm. 

What was Peter doing here?

The woman turns and it immediately clicks into place. MJ watches with annoyance as her cunning green eyes slide across the crowd, quickly scanning and assessing her surroundings, the perpetual smirk still dancing on her oxblood red lips.

A camera flashes from somewhere, and Felicia flips her long ash-blonde hair behind her shoulder to display a diamond necklace shining almost as brightly as her wolfish smile. She turns and whispers something in Peter's ear, making him blush, but he lowers his hand from her waist to her hip and grips tighter. MJ’s stomach lurches unpleasantly.

“Looks like your boy upgraded real fast,” Harry smirks. “What was it that you called me again? An entitled trust-funded playboy? Maybe I should go over there and welcome Pete into the club!”

“Fuckboy, I called you an entitled trust-funded _fuckboy,_ ” MJ grits out, annoyed at herself for letting Harry get under her skin. “Peter is nothing like you.”

But Harry Osborn just beams, inflated with self-satisfaction. 

Michelle spends the rest of the cocktail hour avoiding Harry… and trailing Peter and Felicia without being seen. She's just practicing her stealth, a critical investigative skill, she reasons. Plus, if she has to keep listening to Harry expound on his favorite Vonnegut and Palahniuk novels and how he would make the movie adaptations, she is going to lose it.

Making her way toward Peter and Felicia, MJ walks in lockstep beside servers and keeps turning her head away so they don't see her lurking, until she's close enough to hear their conversation. 

“This dress makes my eyes an ugly celery green color,” Felicia complains, examining herself with her phone's selfie-mode. She flips her hair over her shoulder again, teasing the roots at the crown of her head for volume.

“You're just fishing for a compliment, Leesh.”

“And you're not gonna give it?”

Peter considers her for a moment. “Nope, sorry, no one likes celery.”

She gasps indignantly and swats him with the back of her hand. “Peter!”

He just chuckles and leans away from her continued assault. “If you keep at that, you're gonna lose your, what did you call it? ‘Mysterious allure’?”

“Oh, shut up, Parker.”

With her signature dark red lips and tousled bombshell blonde hair, Felicia has always been glamorous. But she looks painfully radiant tonight—a slinking floor-length gown made of shiny rose-gold satin clings to the curves all the way down her body, flaring into a dramatic train behind her, and the plunging neckline doesn't hide much of anything. 

Although her own hemline ends above her knee, MJ suddenly feels underdressed and almost prudish in her flouncy white dress and matching pointed pumps; she probably looks like she's going to church for Easter service. She's only recently come around to the idea she can pass for pretty, fresh-faced and polished, maybe even beautiful if she takes Peter's word for it, but there's no way MJ could compete with that level of jaw-dropping sexy. Ugh, she was letting Harry get into her head again.

Even more frustrating is how sharp Peter looks tonight. MJ has seen him in a rental tux before, shifting in his plasticky shoes as he waited for her on prom night, holding her black corsage in a box. Now, his broad shoulders fill out the tailored jacket perfectly, the dark fabric tight around his biceps and tapering neatly at his waist, and his styled hair falls over just right.

But Peter keeps nervously tugging at his cuffs, twisting at the cufflinks as he anxiously searches the crowd for something. MJ turns away, letting her hair fall to cover the side of her face, suddenly finding the display of canapes extremely interesting.

-*-

After they're seated for the formal dinner, Michelle stares at Harry without hearing anything he's saying; her mind keeps wandering back to Peter and Felicia, their stupid jokes and banter, the way Felicia pretends to be annoyed at Peter just so she can touch him, and how he doesn't stop her.

MJ can’t believe that it's been barely any time since they broke up and Peter has already started moving on—and he went for the most predictable option. Maybe Felicia was right, he is just like every guy after all. MJ sighs; she really thought he was different, and not because of Spider-Man. 

MJ wonders if her mother felt the same way about her father in the beginning, back when they were in high school, when her father was just the moody boy who liked to write and felt too much. Did her mother think he was special? A sensitive and deep soul that wouldn't hurt her? _Save me from sensitive boys_ , MJ thinks scornfully.*

Tamping down her urge to look around for a platinum blonde head or familiar mop of floppy brown hair, MJ focuses on Harry's dark, defined brows and symmetrical face instead as he keeps talking, and idly wonders when the food will be served. She's starving after being too distracted with following Peter and Felicia around, instead of trailing the servers carrying trays of hors d'oeuvre.

Idly observing how Harry carries himself with the lazy ease of privilege and pondering how he has never been for the want of anything, Michelle is willing to admit that he is objectively handsome in that fit, auburn-haired preppy New England way. That is to say, Harry reminds Michelle a lot of her father. They both have charming smiles and a weak backbone; both are dramatic and self-pitying, needy but demanding. In short, they are complainers—the kind of men who never take responsibility for anything, but are quick to blame others for their misfortune or missed entitlements.

She can imagine Harry throwing a tantrum over getting a manuscript rejected by another publisher—or in his case, a movie script—affronted that no one can see his genius and talent, his handsomeness crumpling into a middle-aged gut and bloodshot eyes from drinking too much.

The empty seat on Harry's other side is supposed to be for Norman, who is still a no-show. She drums her fingers impatiently against the table, drowning out Harry's story about the philosophical epiphanies he had while doing whippets in a hot tub on his last ski trip.

Thankfully, his self-absorbed chatter is interrupted when they announce that Norman will be giving a speech during the first course. Fucking finally.

Norman’s speech is self-aggrandizing, pompous, and absurdly unself-aware. MJ notes that he recycles jokes and anecdotes from previous speeches and interviews, which weren’t funny or interesting the first time around. While she is morally opposed everything that Tony Stark was in his pre-Avengers life, at least _he_ was funny. 

But OsCorp's CEO is like a puppet going through the motions of human gestures and speech, his bulging eyes staring out into the crowd but seeing no one. His speech pattern is oddly formal and clipped, favoring grandiose and archaic turns of phrase; it’s like he’s trying to sound cultured and refined but ends up resembling a curmudgeonly old man, or a vampire.

He sure loved his sesquipedalian words, too. Pretentious fucker.

After he's done with his speech, Norman is ushered away by his staff, and the entree course is served.

Michelle stares down at the bloody steak on her plate, which Harry had ordered for her without asking; if he had, he'd know that she's a fucking vegetarian.

“Oh, I didn't think you were serious about that,” he shrugs when she tells him. “I thought that was chick code for you being on a diet. Which you don't need, by the way." He winks at her, thinking that makes him look charming.

Norman never shows up to their table for dinner.

"Just chill out, he'll come by later, promise," Harry says breezily, and she gets the distinct impression that he's used to making empty promises.

"He better," MJ mutters, pushing her plate away and grabbing her wine glass. All she has are notes about Norman's speech, which aren't very useful, and he was too far away for her to see if he had any lesions or heavy makeup to cover the green sores. Some investigator she is, she thinks ruefully. 

No, every investigator runs into deadends, MJ reminds herself; it's more important to cast a wider net and consider every avenue. If she hadn't come tonight, she'd always wonder if she missed out on some evidence or a new lead.

But Harry is making it very difficult for her to keep her cool. 

“I like how you're not like other girls,” says Harry, carving up his steak. “You're smart, but also smoking hot.” He leans in and smiles conspiratorially at her. “And more importantly, you're not _crazy,_ like some of my exes.”

“You don't know that,” MJ deadpans, tearing into her bread. 

Harry chuckles as if she was only joking, and snaps his fingers at a passing server, telling him to bring their table another bottle of wine and "a salad for the lady". Her stomach growls uncomfortably, and the sudden craving for Peter's special spaghetti with extra garlic makes both her stomach and her heart ache. 

As he gets onto his fourth glass of wine, Harry starts telling her about his favorite hookups and exploits: the girls he took out to dinner at Daniel or Le Coucou, which ones came back with him afterwards to his SoHo loft (all of them), and the ones he met while out clubbing that he didn't even need to take to dinner. 

But Harry assures Michelle that he really doesn't mind that she's a little uptight, and actually likes that she's stuck up 'in a good way.'

"Most guys would call you frigid, but I think you could prove them wrong," he says, leaning over with his arm around the back of her chair.

Starting to slur, Harry whispers loudly about how easy the other girls he's been with were, and how willing they were to do anything he wanted. Gleefully detailing the positions he's tried, Harry swears Michelle that she would really enjoy them, too, if she just keeps an open mind.

Michelle in turn doesn't tell Harry that she's already tried every act and position he's describing—with Peter. Plus a few more acrobatic options that only Spider-Man could pull off. She also doesn't tell Harry that over half of what he catalogued sounded like fake letters to Penthouse magazine anyway.

Peter. A pang of regret wracks her, almost out of nowhere, except that she has been feeling the ghost of it all night. Breaking things off with him was supposed to make them go back to how things were before, when it was less complicated between them. 

Without a word, MJ gets up from her seat, throwing her napkin down. When Harry asks her where exactly does she think she's going, she ignores him and stomps towards the furthest bar. She holds her head high, shoulders back, standing up tall like a sexy giraffe. Or whatever.

But when she catches sight of a familiar platinum blond head by the silent auction, MJ storms past the bar and makes a beeline for her instead. The other woman turns around, long hair swishing perfectly, and red lips curve into a Cheshire grin—menacing and enigmatic. But Michelle refuses to be cowed by Felicia anymore.

“So, are you, like, with Peter now?”

Felicia gives her a pitying look, as if she was a small child who had just asked a stupid question. MJ used to relish this expression on Felicia's face when she was gearing up to tear into someone, but that was back when her target wasn't MJ.

"Nice to see you, too, Michelle. Thought you might have forgotten all about me. You don't write, or call, or text anymore..."

"Answer my question, Felicia."

Felicia rolls her eyes. “Please. I'm never _with_ someone. I'm my own thing. If you're lucky, you get to tag along,” she replies glibly, turning to pluck a rum-glazed grape amuse bouche from a passing server's tray and pop it into her mouth. **

MJ turns to block her, forcing Felicia to face her. “Fine. Is Peter your ‘tag along’ now?”

“Like you were? No, don't worry kitten, no one could measure up to you,” she replies, smiling in that way that makes her cheek almost dimple.

Feeling her nostrils flare, MJ has to forcibly control her breath and relax her shoulders. She still wants to jump on the other woman and shake her, though.

MJ never had much luck when it came to getting close to people. So, it figures that the one time she decides to do something different, go out on a limb and become friends with someone new, Felicia ends up going after the one person that really matters to MJ.

“Anyway, when Peter's a famous CEO or whatever, just remind him to take his aunt as his date to these things—the press loves a mama's boy. But right now, he's a nobody, so he gets to be my plus one."

Feeling her hackles rise, MJ bites her lip so she doesn’t snap that Peter isn’t a nobody. And when did Felicia and Peter talk about Aunt May? When did she and Peter get to know each other so well? 

“Why don't you ask me what you really want to ask me?” says Felicia, her expression serious for a second before it melts back into languid amusement. "You're wondering if we've _fucked_."

MJ says nothing. She won't give Felicia the satisfaction. She won't be that girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend, or ex-whatever—that spins out of control with jealousy and pettiness. It's beneath her. It's supposed to be beneath her.

“Nothing is yours unless you take it,” Felicia continues when MJ doesn't respond. “And it won't stay yours unless you fight for it.”

MJ frowns. “Are you telling me to fight for Peter?”

The woman shrugs and manages to make the gesture look coy and sexy. It makes MJ want to pour wine in her face. "As an art collector, I'm always on the lookout for new pieces to add to my collection. And when I find that perfect, priceless piece and manage to sink my claws into it, I won't let it go easily. You should remember to do the same." Felicia's gloating smirk drops, and her bottom lip almost quivers. "But sometimes old pieces need to go, to make room for the new, it seems."

MJ clenches her jaw. She isn't sure why Felicia's upset; MJ was the old thing that had to get out of her way. Felicia got what—who—she wanted, so why is she sulking?

"So, do you like wrestling around with Osborn junior in his penthouse, too? Or is he more of a lay there and do nothing kinda guy?" asks Felicia, her vicious smile returning as she changes the subject. "I thought you had better taste than that, but I guess a dick's a dick. Is he at least as much fun as I was?"

That seemed like an unnecessary second blow, in MJ's opinion. She gets it; Felicia won, she got the better date, and MJ got what she deserves. "I'm sick of your games, Felicia."

The other woman fake-pouts and replies patronizingly, “Like daddy always told me, if the game doesn't work for you, then change it.”***

“Are we really fighting over a guy, Felicia? I thought we were better than that,” says MJ, knowing that she sounds sulky. 

“Are we?”

Before MJ can ask Felicia which question she was replying to, Peter reappears with a drink in each hand. His face lights up when he sees MJ.

“Fancy meeting you here,” MJ deadpans at him.

“The fancy's all mine,” he quips back happily. But his smile falters when she continues to glare at him. “Uh, do you want a drink? I can go grab you one—”

"No, thanks," she says, arms still crossed. "I see you've already got your hands full. With Felicia."

Peter cocks his head to the side in confusion. "I can leave both drinks here and go back…"

“Forget it. I was leaving anyway.”

"Wait, Em, I need to talk to you about—"

A photographer interrupts them asking to take a photo, which Felicia happily obliges as she sets herself up to pose next to Peter, who is awkwardly deciding whether to face toward her or Michelle. 

“Stop fidgeting and stand in the middle and face the camera,” Felicia grits out between smiling teeth. “And put an arm around both of us, hands on hips. No hover hands.”

Peter sighs but obeys and flashes the photographer a bright, plastic smile that doesn't reach his eyes. The warm weight of his hand on MJ's hip makes her skin tingle beneath, reminding her of all the times he's held her by both hips, without any dress fabric in the way.

After two or three more shots, the photographer moves on. Blinking away the flash spots in her eyes, MJ frowns. Was that all it was earlier, Felicia telling Peter how to pose for photos and making him hold her by the hip? Or is that wishful thinking on MJ’s part?

Then she sees Harry coming over and motioning her toward him. Finally. She can meet Norman and his stupid permed hair, get her interview, and get out of this place. But the last thing she wants right now is for Harry to come over to the three of them; MJ has no idea what games Felicia will come up with to screw with her and Peter's heads.

"I gotta go," MJ huffs, pushing past Peter. She lets her eyelids drop for a moment, blinking away the stinging behind her eyes. The sharp pain travels down her throat to her heart, then her stomach, and she can't get away from Peter and Felicia fast enough. 

"I can't have _my_ date taking photos with other guys, especially when you're the nobody!" Harry hisses the moment she gets in earshot, reaching out to grab her wrist. "And why does Parker get to do the Tony Stark photo pose at _my_ father's party?"

Michelle smacks his hand off. "Are you fucking serious right now? Where's your dad?"

"Yeah, about that…"

Crossing her arms, Michelle swallows the rage that is bubbling up inside her gut, and lets her face falls into a disappointed glare. 

"Look, it's not that he wouldn't meet you, but… If you were more than just my date for the night, then maybe he'd think you were worth his while, that's all."

“Typical. Overpromise and underdeliver, the Harry Osborn special,” Michelle says coldly. “I can't believe I wasted my time like this, wasted an entire night.”

“Hey, I still got you into the party,” Harry says defensively. 

“So I can write a fluff piece about another sham OsCorp charity? Thanks, but no thanks,” she scowls, wrapping her arms around herself. She hates that she's all dressed up and wasting it on this asshole. “You really don't have influence or pull anywhere, huh? Not even with your own dad—”

“You know what? Fuck you!” Harry snaps. “I have no influence? _I_ was the one who made sure FrontLine didn't get passes tonight. Even had them pulled after the fact. How's that for no pull?”

Clenching her fists, Michelle is drawing on every drop of self control she has to stop herself from punching Harry in his stupid symmetrical face. She fantasizes, in vivid detail, about employing a judo choke that Felicia had taught her but she had never quite mastered. The memory of Felicia training her makes her chest clench.

“I can't believe you fucked over my job—other people's jobs!—because you're a petty little shit!” MJ hisses, becoming self-conscious that they are starting to draw attention. She takes a deep breath to reclaim her composure, and tucks some loose strands of hair behind her ear. Michelle fears a bystander might actually think she and Harry were together, given how heated their fight is getting.

“And you're a heartless bitch!” Harry barks back. “Don't think for a second that I don't see it. I know you're using me, Michelle.”

“For what, Harry? I can't see anything useful coming out of you,” she replies coolly, nostrils flaring. It's a relief to finally tell him all of this after rationalizing the opposite to herself for so long: that she shouldn't burn bridges, that she needs to keep up with sources, that she's supposed to act nice and be grateful to any guy who's interested in her, even if she doesn't feel the same way.

Before Harry can reply, Michelle flips him off with a middle finger and turns to stomp away on her stilettos. They're killing her feet, but it is almost worth it just to be able to see the exit from her vantage point. She cannot get out of here soon enough.

Her anger distracts her from feeling anxious and self-conscious about wading through the mass of affluent and influential attendees, and when the crowd thins out, she almost runs for the door.

On the way out, she spots Peter and Felicia laughing about something, and MJ's anger stumbles as the sick, nauseating feeling in the pit of her stomach rears up, ready to overtake her. She feels like she's been kicked in the gut. But she doesn't slow down, and her aching feet keep stomping toward her escape.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees Peter waving at her, but she doesn't dare look up; she doesn't want to confirm that he isn't. 

After a moment, MJ catches her chin drifting back over her shoulder; he's not there anymore and Felicia is alone. MJ turns around quickly before the other woman catches her looking, and continues out of the venue.

She slows down on her heels when she gets to the steps leading out of the main foyer, but continues marching out of the gala with her chin up. She wants Peter to follow her, she wants it so badly that she can't help the quivering of her lips and the burning feeling behind her eyes. 

So she holds her breath and tells herself that if he follows her, there's still a chance for them. And if he doesn't… _no, that's stupid_ , she thinks and shakes her head. When did she lose her goddamn mind and start becoming superstitious, of all things?

“MJ! Wait!” 

Relief floods her almost viscerally when she hears Peter's voice, and when MJ feels his hand close on her shoulder, she almost gives in right then. But she musters up her resolve and takes a deep breath, stopping but not yet turning around. 

Peter walks around to face her, his coiffed hair is flopping messily and his black tie is crooked. Her fingers itch to tuck the stray curls back in place. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” MJ replies, softer than she meant to. She blames his stupid puppy eyes.

“I—I didn't know you'd be here.” 

“I didn't know you'd be here, either.”

They stare at each other in silence, all the unspoken questions hanging between them. How did they become virtually strangers over the span of two weeks? When did they stop talking and start living separate lives? 

Peter drops his hand from her shoulder, letting his fingers ghost down her bare arm along the way, and takes her hand in his. A shiver runs through her as his touch leaves goosebumps on her skin and a growing heat in her lower stomach. “You look amazing, MJ.” 

She snorts. “I look like an old timey nurse.”

Peter laughs, unabashedly looking her up and down, and she soaks in how it good it feels to be the center of his attention again. Like stepping into a hot bath after coming in from a bone-chilling rainstorm.

“Or a sexy lab technician,” he suggests, tucking a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear. When did he get so close? 

“Yeah, like you’ve never had that fantasy before,” she teases, but quickly clears her throat and reassembles the cold glare back on her face.

Peter just lifts his shoulders in a shrug, making his flexed arm muscles strain against the fabric of his jacket, and his darkened eyes trail down her body again. “MJ, your legs are incredible.”

“Peter…”

Sensing her warning tone, he reaches out to stroke her jaw with his thumb only once and lets go. “Right. Broken up. So we can only, what, shake hands? Are high fives and fist bumps okay?”

Peter really does look frustratingly good in a tux, MJ thinks as she absentmindedly traces the edge of the black satin lapels on his jacket. “Yeah, those are all okay. As long as it’s just... hand stuff.”

His eyes flick up to her face earnestly, but his smile is sly. “You wanna get out of here?”

MJ tamps down the flutter of elation in her chest and holds onto enough of her wits to ask, “What about Felicia?”

“Oh, you know, I have a bad habit of ditching my dates in the middle of these fancy events,” he replies sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. 

MJ crosses her arms. “Good night, Peter.”

Clutching onto the sliver of resolve that she manages to muster, she turns and continues to walk away again, trying to erase Peter's disappointed expression from her mind.

“I met Norman Osborn.”

That stops her in her tracks.

“His assistant found me and brought me over to him before his speech. Norman said he's been 'following my trajectory'," continues Peter, making air quotes with his fingers. "He knew that I got the Lazarovic Award for electrical engineering, which he got his freshman year at ESU, too.**** I guess that isn't too weird by itself, but then he stared at me without blinking for, like, way too long. Kinda creepy. And then he said something about him and Tony being these great rivals, geniuses competing with each other, but Tony never mentioned Norman Osborn—or even OsCorp—in all the time we knew each other.”

She squints at Peter, taking in all the information that comes pouring out of him in his usual rambling fashion. It's kind of cute. Kind of. 

“He was even like, _I'm something of a scientist myself, you know,_ ” Peter mimics Norman’s puffed up chest and weird pompous tone. Michelle giggles despite herself, and tries to mask it with a cough. “I think you're right, though, about Norman being up to something. My Spider-sense was tingling the whole time we were talking. What do you think he's planning?”

"I don't know yet. But I think it has to do with this disease he supposedly has, and that armed facility is a big piece of it—no, I’m not saying we go there. I’m not mad about that anymore,” MJ says before Peter can object again. "He didn't sit down to dinner and pretty much avoided everyone, including Harry, but sought you out?"

Peter taps his chin contemplatively. "Do you think his plan has anything to do with SI? With how fixated Norman was about Tony, maybe he's trying to do something Tony's done, or copy a piece of SI tech?" 

MJ nods, considering the possibility. "OsCorp is a biochemical company, though. Maybe a weapon?"

A dark look crosses Peter’s face. "He knew that I was Tony's protege. Was really interested about that actually. Might think I know something, worked on something of interest…"

Instinctively, MJ steps closer to him, her arms itching to reach over and comfort him like she did in the weeks after Tony’s death. She also really misses doing this—talking about a case with Peter, comparing notes and bouncing ideas off each other. She also desperately wants him to be on her side in this fight against Norman Osborn. Should she tell him about her mother, and _all_ the evidence she really has? Or will he think she’s being blinded by her personal vendetta and emotional connection to the case? 

"I guess I should be thankful that you were here with Felicia," she says instead, forcing a light chuckle. "So you could run into Norman when my mission became a bust."

Peter clears his throat and his eyes dart around nervously. “Don’t get mad, okay? But... I'm not here for Felicia. She was willing to bring me because she kinda owes me one for something, but after FrontLine’s passes got pulled, I thought maybe I could go to the gala and find some intel on OsCorp or Norman for you. I’m not trying to do your job or anything! And I’m not saying that you can’t do your job. I just want to help. And maybe get you not to be mad at me anymore, since I wouldn't break into that place.”

A warm flush of relief and affection blooms in MJ’s chest, and it becomes difficult to hold onto her anger any longer. She wraps her arms around herself, not meeting Peter’s eyes when she speaks. 

“Harry was the one that got FrontLine’s press passes pulled because I wouldn’t go with him to this stupid thing as his date. But I played right into his master plan anyway,” MJ sighs, her shoulders hanging dejectedly. It shouldn’t wound her pride so much, but it does. 

“I figured it was something like that,” Peter replies sympathetically. “You seemed pretty pissed at the sandwich shop that day.”

Pursing her lips, MJ nods tightly, still wishing that whole encounter never happened. "You look nice, tonight, by the way," she says, hoping to change the subject. “Who knew a degenerate in spandex could clean up so well?”

"Thanks," Peter chuckles lightly, his eyes hopeful at her. “So, um, what are you up to after this?”

MJ raises an eyebrow at him. "Go back to the party, loser. You know how Felicia gets when you don't pay enough attention to her."

He exhales heavily, rolling his eyes. "You don’t need to remind me.”

"But I'll see you when you get home tonight?" MJ tries for a casual tilt of her shoulder, half coy and half bored, but her voice lilts up earnestly when she asks him.

The smile that breaks across Peter's face could light up Times Square. "Yeah! Definitely. I'll get back as soon as I can."

MJ bites on her lip and glances at Peter again. “Also, thanks for your help with Norman and just, like, being on my team, even when I wasn’t being a good partner.” 

Peter takes her hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. "We'll always be on the same team, MJ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Spider-Man: Parallel Lives (2011)  
> ** Amazing Spider-Man: Venom Inc. (2018)  
> *** Spider-Man and the Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do #6 (2006)  
> **** Spider-Man: Life Story #1 (2019)
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	13. Michelle: X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ is sick of cat puns, so she's going to get to the bottom of the truth right meow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [ Undo](https://open.spotify.com/track/37M3OdQDrqzHSYwgMC7Jgi?si=p2ooihd7RMKD2BUEHQxJmA) by Transviolet  
>  _"I'm not the kind of girl you undo… I've been undone long before you."_  
>   
>  Ok, ok, 16 chapters is the final count, promise! It's only because of 2 half chapters that ended up overflowing from my original outline... #sorrynotsorry
> 
> Thank you for the feedback, especially on the last chapter! I love hearing what you guys are thinking, including your theories and suspicions and feelingssss!

When MJ first wakes up the morning after the gala, she isn’t sure what time it is. The sun isn’t up yet, but the faint light of dawn casts blue shadows on Peter’s sleeping face beside her. Shifting over so she can face him without disturbing him, she watches him for a bit as he breathes softly, his brows slightly furrowed. 

Holding her breath, MJ places a hand against his chest. Peter stirs gently and instinctively wraps his hand over hers, pressing it against his heart. She exhales slowly and rests her head against his thickly muscled shoulder, enjoying the warmth of his body radiating through his shirt.

“Are you up?” he whispers in the dark.

MJ snuggles closer, burying her face in his chest and inhaling deeply. “Mmm… yeah.”

They’re both quiet for a while, listening to each other breathe. Her other hand slowly finds its way beneath his shirt, softly tracing the taut lines along his stomach, then roaming up to his hard pecs and biceps.

"You're gonna stretch my shirt out doing that," Peter murmurs in a thick sleep-laden voice, but he doesn't stop her. He just rests his hand on her hip and slides a leg in between hers. They lie like that for a few minutes, regarding each other in the dark. MJ doesn't want this moment to end, but she also wants something _more_. 

Then he’s touching her face and her hair, running his hands along her waist. Peter is tentative at first, but slowly getting bolder. Soon, he has his hands underneath her shirt, his rough palms running up her side and cupping her breasts. Heat pools between her legs and she can feel herself getting wetter.

MJ feels giddy and breathless, and maybe a little nervous, but she doesn't know why. It's not like they haven't done this before. 

It takes forever, but Peter finally slides a hand beneath the sheets and in between her thighs. He is being so gentle and tender that it makes her want to cry. Out of relief? Pleasure? Comfort? MJ has been homesick and didn't even realize it. 

His nose tickles her neck as he plants kisses on his way down her body, and she gasps when his hot tongue runs over the peaks of her breasts. He takes his time with his soft, thoughtful ministrations, and MJ considers for the first time that all the rough sex they’ve been having lately may have been more for her than for him.

When Peter climbs on top of her, MJ can barely restrain herself from pulling him into her immediately. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she runs her hands all over his back, relishing the feeling of his hard muscles shifting beneath her palms. He tilts her by the chin to look up at him, his eyes dark and intense. 

A deep, almost embarrassingly throaty moan escapes her mouth when he finally pushes into her. The fullness in between her legs makes her toes curl, and MJ moans again, softer this time, as he begins to move his hips. 

Peter feels _so_ _good_. 

Panting, hot and sweaty, she can't think straight any more. She's missed him so much—his hard body pressed against her, his impossibly dexterous hands working her all over, and the smoldering way he looks at her with such adoration and desire. 

The pale morning light illuminates the languid motions of their bodies. Throwing her arms around his neck, MJ wriggles her hips so he can push deeper into her. Their movements are deliberate and slow, and it feels torturous and amazing at the same time. 

Peter trails kisses across her collarbones before burying his face between her breasts. She shudders when his tongue runs over her nipple, again and again, and the licks quickly turn into wet sucking. 

But then he slows down again, and his hands go from frantic squeezing to methodically memorizing her body by touch. Peter murmurs something into her neck, and his lips brushing against her skin makes her shiver. But he shakes his head when she asks him what he said, and tells her it's nothing at all.

A painful thought strikes MJ. Is _this_ their last time? After all their frantic, heated post break-up sex, is this it, the soft and sweet finale? This time feels different and it scares her a little. A profound feeling of loss shoots through her, and she feels full and empty at the same time. She holds Peter tighter and buries her face into his neck, afraid to let go. 

"Are you okay? Am I hurting you?" He shifts back to look at her.

MJ shakes her head, still clinging onto him. "Don't stop."

She doesn't know how to put it into words. After thousands of hours of reading and absorbing millions of words, MJ still doesn't know how to say what she needs to say to him now. She wants him, she wants him to want her, and the very idea of not being with him is physically agonizing.

In just two weeks, she'll be back at school to start the fall semester, and hundreds of miles from Peter. It sounds unbearable not waking up next to him every day, not being able to look forward to the sound of their window sliding open when he gets in from patrol, or walking into the apartment just as he's finished cooking dinner.

Peter's rhythm starts to become erratic and she can feel his cock swell and throb against her walls. Each excruciatingly slow thrust drags his entire length in and out of her, and the sensation builds up inside her like a volcano. Finally, a hot and dizzying wave washes over her, and MJ twists and turns in pleasure, grasping at him desperately. 

But the most intense moment comes after, when her body is still trembling from her orgasm. Peter gazes into her eyes like he sees right through her, like he knows everything inside her head and it doesn't change anything, that it's all okay. MJ blinks and looks away; it's too much for her. She feels oddly exposed despite the darkness of their room.

Something different happened between them this time, and now nothing feels quite the same anymore. Peter is curled up against her, asleep, his head on her bare chest as their arms wrapped around each other. MJ doesn't want to let him go. 

Soon, she begins to drift off to sleep with hazy visions of studying with Peter in a college library, movie nights in his dorm room, and eating lunch together in between classes.

She could apply to the ESU journalism fellowships that Sally told her about, especially with the letter of recommendation she offered to write. Maybe she'll ask her editor about it when she hands in her photos of the gala and her notes of the event; Sally doesn't need to know Michelle was the reason the paper's passes got pulled in the first place.

MJ turns the idea back and forth in her mind, toying with the possibilities, and tries not to get too attached to the excitement that she feels about the prospect. 

It would also be easier to continue her OsCorp investigation if she wasn't limited to being back in New York for school breaks, she justifies, not to mention the actual journalism curriculum at ESU.

Plus, MJ misses New York. She misses the familiarity, the energy, the good food, and the way the city is always there waiting to welcome her back, no matter how long she's been away.

-*-

Still sore from her morning with Peter, MJ shifts in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She's still tender and aching between her legs, but the satisfaction of holding Peter as he slept soothes her all over.

But in the harsh light of day, the frustrations and aggravations from yesterday come rushing back. Furious about the gala and being blown off by Norman Osborn, Michelle decides that she needs to take matters into her own hands. She pulls up the video footage that Peter's suit recorded of the mysterious facility and tries to identify any paths into the building that could cut through the guards' patrol routes. 

It's a fool's errand, the kind of reckless heroics that an Avenger would attempt. She scribbles down a few options, but none of them are solid enough for her liking; too contingent on guard patrol schedules she doesn't know inside and out and partial bits of intelligence. Giving up, she clicks through the rest of the footage idly in case anything useful turns up.

She skips ahead and pauses when a familiar face appears on the screen. It’s Felicia Hardy facing Spider-Man on the video, and MJ immediately recognizes the hotel suite in the background. 

“No, you know I can't do that. _We_ can't—” Before Peter can finish, Felicia slaps him hard, but he barely flinches, which seems to enrage her even more. 

“Why?” she demands. She is frazzled and undone, her nose and eyes are red.

“Because it's wrong!”

Felicia throws a fist at him to get him to grab her wrists, but he lets her punch land against his chest, and she stumbles back, not expecting how solid he’d be. He just holds his spandex-clad arms out and she collapses into him, sobbing quietly. 

“I'd do the same for you, no questions asked,” she says softly.

Spider-Man chuckles ruefully. “I think you'd do it just for the fun of it, Party Hardy...”

Felicia looks up at him tearfully, her sad green eyes rimmed in dark, running mascara. “Do you think I'll always be bad?” Her pouty lips tremble, and MJ rolls her eyes, fighting the urge to yell at Peter to beware of Felicia's crocodile tears. She was being so obviously transparent and MJ couldn’t believe he was falling for it. 

“I believe you’re a good person making bad choices. This is your chance to make a good one,” his voice replies, sounding exactly like the Peter that MJ knows, and her chest suddenly feels tight.*

“Oh, Spider.” The familiar patronizing smirk returns to Felicia’s face until she sniffs again, wiping at her eyes. “You’re so good at making me almost believe that.”

Staring at the blonde's teary expression, how hopeful she looked up at the camera—at Peter—makes MJ want to break the screen. Her oxblood red lipstick was smeared and just a patchy stain on her lips now, but her cheeks are flushed and dewy. _Felicia even looks good when she cries_ , Michelle broods. 

Shaking her head, MJ rubs her face with her hands, which feel clammy and weak. She can’t stop thinking about what she saw and heard. It roils and burns in the pit of her stomach—the way he and Felicia were so casual and intimate, in the video as Spider-Man and at the gala as Peter, whereas he and MJ have been cold and distant with each other for weeks except when they were fucking. 

She can't stand it, the feeling that Peter is slipping through her fingers. She is furious and confused and heartbroken all at once, and it takes all of her energy and composure not to think about it while she's at work. 

_Ugh, and the way she called him Spider, like she really knows him or something, all sultry and pouty,_ MJ fumes as she stomps home after work. _Who the hell does Felicia think she is? The Black Cat?_

MJ stops in her tracks. Fuck.

-*-

Thick velvet curtains enclose their private booth, muffling the sounds coming from other patrons in the swanky, dimly lit speakeasy. There’s a service bell fitted with a brass chain hanging from the ceiling, allowing them to beckon their server at their leisure with a simple tug. Otherwise, they are left alone.

Michelle doesn't know what to order. There's no menu and this doesn't seem like the kind of place where she could ask for whatever was on tap or a simple well drink.

“Just tell her what you're in the mood for—or not in the mood for. They'll take care of the rest,” instructs Felicia, comfortably reclined on the plush chesterfield couch. She turns to their server, an attractive woman with an androgynous haircut and shoulder tattoos peaking out of her black bandage dress, and purrs, “I think we're in for a _serious_ night, so maybe something to help me keep up with this one?” Felicia cocks her head towards MJ.

“Something bitter for me,” Michelle says sharply, crossing her arms and slumping back into the cushions. “And strong."

Unfazed, their server nods and sweeps out of their booth, the golden spurs on her designer boots clinking. The flickering candlelight casts shadows along Felicia's face, illuminating her feral smile but obscuring her glittering eyes like a mask.

Michelle can't believe she didn't see it sooner. Now she can't stop seeing it—the dark outline of Black Cat's goggles on Felicia's face, and how obvious she has been this whole time about her double life.

"Thanks for the hundreds of frantic text messages this morning," says Felicia, tapping her phone with her freshly manicured nails. "You really know how to make a girl feel wanted. But it might come off as a bit needy, babe."

"Well, I needed to talk to you."

"Otherwise, you just ignore me until you need something from me again?" 

Unmoved by her attempt to guilt trip her, Michelle counters, "You'd do the same. Didn't you only want to be friends with me to get to Spider-Man? I was just the Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man to you."

Fluttering her eyelashes coyly, Felicia rolls her shoulder in a lazy shrug as she stretches her body across the couch. "You got me there, kitten. But the tabloids are so patronizing. You should be called the grown-ass _Woman_ Who Kissed Spider."

Refusing to let the socialite run her in anymore circles, Michelle leans in close and hisses, “I’m onto you, Felicia.”

Felicia smiles viciously back, her white teeth gleaming in the shadowy candlelight. “There’s no one I’d rather have on me, kitten.”

“Knock it off, Felicia. I know you're the Black Cat,” Michelle spits out, bringing her fist down on the plush armrest.

“Aw, cat's out of the bag now,” Felicia pouts, her green eyes wide and innocent. Then her white canine-bearing grin returns, and she clicks her tongue at Michelle. “Took you long enough. Two months isn't too bad, though. Glad you didn't let me down, Harvard.”

Michelle lets out a strangled laugh, disappointed that she can’t ruffle Felicia. “Aren't you afraid people will find out?”

“Why would I be? Don't have anyone that my enemies could hurt to get to me. Except maybe you, kitty. But you've got Spider-Man eating out of the palm of your hand, don't you? I'm sure he'll take good care of you."

MJ blinks dispassionately at her. “I don't know anything about that.”

Felicia's smirk widens. “Good girl, you're learning.”

Just as MJ is about to question her further, the server returns with their cocktails on a mirrored tray. Placing the coupe glass down before Felicia, the server explains, "This is a riff on the Boulevardier but using Braulio, a minty, pungent, warm-spiced amaro. An unusual, bittersweet cocktail that's not playing around.”

“Good. Neither am I," Felicia replies huskily, looking up at the server with bedroom eyes. 

The other woman flashes a quick half smile back at Felicia, and places MJ's drink down next, a crystal tumbler filled up to two fingers with amber liquid. “For you, this is a Sazerac with a grapefruit twist and a spray of absinthe that offers a note of anise—”

Michelle angrily grabs the lowball glass to down the drink in one go, but she sputters and coughs at the surprising and painful burn, only managing a large snorting gulp. She half-slams and half-drops the glass, pounding her chest with the other hand, still coughing.

Their server maintains her neutral gaze and continues without missing a beat “—a note of anise and herbal perfume. A delicate and complex mix I'm sure you'll appreciate. Enjoy."

When the heavy curtain falls back down behind the server, the soundless vacuum of their booth suddenly feels suffocating to MJ. The pit of her stomach burns from the liquor, like a fire that's spreading up her throat and threatening to make her vomit. She swallows her saliva and, after another cough, croaks out, "Why do you do it, Felicia? Why dress up, and do all this Black Cat stuff?"

“Like it or not, this is the new world order. Either you’ve got superpowers, or you're, at best, nothing—at worst, you get crushed under somebody’s heel,” Felicia replies, taking a sip of her drink. “Five years of chaos and complete upheaval caused by the Blip… I could have kept mourning what I lost, or find a way to turn it into an opportunity.”

"So you became a cat burglar with a suped-up suit?"

"A _world-class_ cat burglar and tenth degree black belt in judo with the reflexes and agility of an Olympic acrobat, and a suped-up suit. In any case, better than being a normal schlub while everyone else is getting super-suited up or experimented on by the military or bitten by a radioactive spider..."

MJ desperately wants to ask Felicia if Peter knows her secret, and if she knows his. The question burns in her mouth like a red hot coal on her tongue, and she wants to spit it out at Felicia. She’d spit anything in her face right now, really. She settles for asking, “What do you want from Spider-Man?”

Felicia licks her lips. “Sometimes I just need an extra pair of hands.”

Sick of her innuendos, MJ ignores the other woman’s bait and presses on. “Is that why you were up to all the vigilantism? To get Spider-Man to help you with something?”

“Oh, yes. He helped me with a big job. A _really big_ one.” Felicia leans forward, pressing her ample cleavage together. “Plus, it was fun! I didn't even have to be bad to have a good time, can you believe it? I resisted at first, but Spider wore me down,” she winks. “ _No killing, Cat. No needless maiming, Cat. Blah-blah_ boy scout rules.”

Letting out a rueful laugh, MJ grabs her drink and carefully sips it this time. Her throat is still burning from the liquor and her head is starting to spin. She needs to get out of here and sort through everything Felicia has just told her, sift through her words to figure out what she’s really saying. But MJ needs to know one more thing. 

“Why were you messing with me that night? When those assholes were following me home.”

“Uh, have you met me?” 

“Fine, fair enough. But I didn’t think you’d ever turn on _me_.” MJ feels her anger start to melt into something else, cold and heavy in her chest. The hurt must have shown on her face, because Felicia doesn’t have a witty reply ready. The blonde just turns away, tracing the lip of her cocktail glass absentmindedly. MJ scoffs. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

The candle burns low and starts to flicker more rapidly, making it appear as if Felicia’s eyes are glistening wet. "Like I told you before, sometimes I just can’t stop myself." Her voice is low and husky, laden with the unscripted things she doesn't say. "For what it's worth—"

"You didn’t mean to hurt me? Didn't like doing it?"

"No, I did. But you really were my favorite."

Standing up, MJ towers over the other woman and puts her hands on her hips. “Bye, Felicia.”

_-*-_

MJ replays every encounter she has ever had with the Black Cat, now with the knowledge that it was Felicia Hardy underneath the… goggles. She shakes her head to herself. She can’t believe she missed something so obvious. It’s fucking embarrasing.

Peter must know, right? How could he keep something like this from her? 

It's easy to get lost in Felicia Hardy. Too easy. MJ can't really blame Peter; even she had fallen under Felicia's spell, and she was the one who brought her into their lives. 

Staring up at the cracking paint on the ceiling as she lies in bed in the dark, Michelle ruminates over the same questions as her thoughts keep circling back to the same place. She hopes Peter stops by home before going out on patrol tonight. There's a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, like something bad is going to happen and she can't stop it. Anxiety and nausea ripple through her. 

_Who are you? Peter Parker, calm and reliable, sensitive and kind—or Spider-Man, wild and unpredictable, free and irresponsible?_ MJ wonders to herself as she lies there, her hands over her heart. _Which is the real you? Are you a fraud, like my father? Or are you just hiding yourself, like me? How can I find out without getting hurt?**_

But the moments tick by and after an eternity—or about ten minutes—MJ gets up with an impatient growl and texts Peter asking if he could come home early today.

She waits for him to respond and fights the urge to message him again. It's better to talk in person, she reminds herself, so there aren’t any misunderstandings, not anymore. But her texts go unread, and she decides to give it some time before she calls him. 

He's probably busy at work. Or maybe even squeezing in an early evening patrol; he does that when he's stressed. Guilt pangs in MJ when she thinks that she's probably the cause of it. Too worked up to sit still, she gets up to check the Spider suits he keeps at home for regular patrols and they're all accounted for. She grabs her phone again.

When Peter doesn't answer his office line, she tries his co-worker Phil, who does pick up.

“Hey, Michelle! What's up?”

“Hi, Phil. Not much… um. Is Peter there by any chance?” she forces her voice to sound normal but it quivers anyway.

“Oh, uh, no. Sorry. He never came back from lunch. I figured he just took the rest of the day off, maybe meeting up with you?” says Phil.

If Peter wasn't at work, not swinging around on patrol, and he wasn't home with her, where the hell is he? MJ swallows anxiously. She doesn't want to think about it, because the moment she does, her mind will conjure up images she won't be able to forget; images of Peter's fingers tangled in long blonde hair, of curvy thighs wrapped around his waist, of his face buried in busty cleavage that MJ will never have...

But what is she going to do? Storm into the penthouse at the New York Palace and what? 'Catch them?' She doesn't want to do that. Her anger has a limit, and that is where her fears start. She'd rather never see either of them again than have the painful satisfaction of being right about this.

MJ sighs at herself. She is being ridiculous—and a bad investigator. She is making conclusions based on her feelings instead of evidence and facts. She needs to retrace his steps methodically, like an investigator would.

“You haven't seen him since lunch? Did he go to that cafe down the street, where he gets his sandwiches? The one with the good lentil soup?”

Phil hums to himself. “Yeah, probably. He goes there almost everyday.”

“When did he leave?”

“I texted him just after he left to tell him to grab me a bag of Fritos, and that was at… gimme a sec... twelve twenty one.”

MJ thanks Phil for his help and hangs up, asking Karen to pull up security video footage from inside the cafe. If she sees Peter and Felicia meeting up there together, then she'll know, and she won't have to bust into the New York Palace like a crazy jealous girlfriend.

 _You're not even his girlfriend_ , a voice hisses in her head. _You let him go, so let him go._

MJ watches the footage from the security camera pointed at the cash registers, and her heart clenches when she sees Peter show up and pay for a sandwich and a bag of chips. He stares at something off screen as the cashier rings him up, looking a bit sad and zoned out, and she realizes it's in the direction of where she and Harry were sitting that day. Then he turns to leave, and nothing unusual happens.

About to give up on the cafe as a dead end, MJ does a double take when she sees a shady-looking man in sunglasses follow Peter out of the camera's frame a moment later. Ignoring the ball of dread forming in her stomach, she pulls up other security camera feeds from the surrounding area, but none of them cover the alleyway behind the shop. She finally finds a traffic control clip showing an unmarked van pulling out from behind the cafe; the license plate comes up as a bogus one when MJ has Karen run it.

“Karen, is Peter wearing his web shooters? Can you track them? Where is he now?”

“Yes. Peter is at the unidentified facility where he conducted reconnaissance for you. Would you like the coordinates?”

“Shit. Shit fuck!” MJ mutters, feeling bile rise in her throat. "I mean, yes, please. Give me everything you have about the facility, Karen. Please."

 _OsCorp_ has him? Why does OsCorp want him? Do they know about Spider-Man? She groans. They picked him up during one of the few times he wouldn't have any of his Spider suits on him. He has his web shooters, at least.

Or, maybe they aren't after Spider-Man at all, but Peter? Whoever took him knew where he routinely goes for lunch.

All she knows right now is that she can't break into that facility on her own. Although she was already sketching out a break in plan before this happened, it was mostly hypothetical and more to help her get over her anger at Norman and the gala. Even Peter wouldn't do it as Spider-Man. 

How the fuck was she supposed to get to him?

-*-

Felicia answers the door with a glass of red wine in hand and a joint hanging precariously between her red lips. “Hey, stranger. Long time no see.” 

“Peter’s missing,” says Michelle without preamble, pushing past Felicia to walk into the suite.

Felicia smirks. “Aw, lost your puppy?”

“I’m not playing around, Felicia.” 

“Oh, but I like to play," Felicia replies, lighting up the joint again and taking a hit.

As chagrined as MJ feels to be coming to Felicia for help after their confrontation just hours before, she doesn't have time for her games—Peter doesn't have time. Either OsCorp knows he's Spider-Man, or they'll find out if he tries to get away without his suit.

“This is serious. I don't have time for your little double entendre games or whatever.”

“Ooh, someone's got her claws out.” Felicia turns around with a flip of her hair and saunters away from Michelle without looking back, which infuriates her. But Peter needs her help more than she needs her pride, so MJ swallows it and says softly, “I need your help.”

Felicia takes a long hit of the joint, the embers glowing red as it burns through the paper, and taps the ashes off into a crystal tumbler, her eyes never leaving Michelle’s. “I think you're looking for Black Panther, not Black Cat. I'm just the bad guy, aren't I?”

“It's Peter. OsCorp has him. Kidnapped him.”

Looking at MJ like she’s crazy, Felicia shrugs. “So? Call the police.”

“And wait for them to get a warrant? We don't have time, he could be dosing Peter any second now."

"What are you talking about?"

“Just—I'll tell you on the way, we're running out of time. I can't quite manage a rescue mission into an armed OsCorp facility by myself. I have utility maps of the facility, and I’m pretty sure I know where they’re keeping him—”

“You gathered quite a lot of intel in no time, huh?”

“It’s been an ongoing project," MJ says impatiently. "I'm going to take down OsCorp and destroy Norman Osborn's life's work. I'll tell you about it later, I promise, I just need your help now—”

“Ambitious _and_ destructive. I like it,” Felicia nods, impressed. 

"So you'll come with me? As the Black Cat?"

Felicia scrunches up her face in distaste. “I don't think so, Michelle. I just don't see what this has to do with me.”

"I thought Peter was your friend." _Maybe more?_

"Yeah, and I'd be down to play basketball with him or whatever, not break into an evil corporation to hunt him down. Besides he could be fine," says Felicia, refilling her wine glass. "Maybe he's interviewing for a job there and had to be stealthy about it. Want some Malbec?"

MJ lets out a frustrated growl, her fists clenched. "No, I don't want any fucking wine right now, Felicia."

The two women stare at each other, MJ frazzled and panicked while Felicia casually sips her wine. Why was she so calm? Did she really not care what happens to Peter? Unless she thinks—knows—he can handle himself...

“You know who Spider-Man is. His real identity.”

Without looking MJ in the eyes, the blonde lights up the joint again and takes a slow hit. Then she exhales the smoke slowly, filling the air with haze. "Of course."

Michelle takes a deep, slow breath. She knows. Felicia fucking knows that Peter is Spider-Man. It took years, literally _years_ , for him to tell MJ his secret, and even then she had forced the conversation. And now she learns it took Felicia, gorgeous and mesmerizing Felicia Hardy, barely a summer to get it out of him. 

She supposes she shouldn't be surprised, but Michelle really thought Peter was different, that he wouldn't fall for Felicia’s charm and games. But an even worse suspicion hovers in the back of her mind that Felicia wasn't toying with him, and that there could be something real going on between them. MJ pushes the paranoia to the back of her mind; she needs to focus on helping Peter first. 

“When did he tell you?” MJ asks, her voice cracking.

Felicia rolls her eyes. “He didn’t. I figured it out. He's really terrible at keeping secrets. I can’t believe everyone doesn’t already know.”

"Then help me. Help Spider-Man! He doesn't have his spider suit, and if he tries to get out using his powers, OsCorp will _know_. I thought you two were a team." MJ almost chokes on her own words.

Felicia drops the roach of her joint into an ashtray and walks to her bedroom, motioning for MJ to follow, just like the first time they met. “I can’t get mixed up in this. Sorry, kitty. I helped Spider on a bunch of his patrols, and he helped me with my one big job. As far as I’m concerned, we’re squared away and even. But here, take this.” She hands Michelle a heavy black garment. “A covert tactical vest. Try not to get shot in the head.”

Michelle’s expression stays calm and impassive, but she can feel the color drain from her face at the prospect of having to wear a bulletproof vest anywhere. “Uh, thanks.”

“And this. It’s a taser gun with over ten microcoulombs of charge, so that should be able to take a few bodies down. Good luck!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #18 "Spiral" (2015)  
> ** Spider-Man: Parallel Lives (2011)
> 
> What are you guys expecting/hoping for the rest of the story? Ready for a Peter POV yet??
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	14. Peter IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter thinks about MJ, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: ["Heartbeats"](https://open.spotify.com/track/5YqpHuXpFjDVZ7tY1ClFll?si=6M5zO52hTMWzdMtDE2014Q) by José González
> 
> Thanks for the comments and kudos on the last chapter! Here, have an unplanned half-chapter that started out as a short Peter POV at the end of the last chapter, but then it got away from me...
> 
> Let me know what you think!

“I really hate you, you know that?” Black Cat hisses at Spider-Man, a clawed hand on her cocked hip and the other one pointing accusingly at him.

“And I am thoroughly disgusted by you,” Peter shoots back.* “Who actually likes broccoli on pizza?”

“Then don’t get any on yours!”

“Nope, couldn't order that in good conscience. I'd have to revoke your New Yorker credentials.”

“Rude,” she mutters disgruntledly, but takes a slice of the plain cheese pie Peter was offering anyway.

They’re on a rooftop in the middle of Brooklyn for a mid-patrol break, refueling and chatting while they scarf down a large pizza pie. It is kind of bizarre to watch the enigmatic Black Cat in her sleek black suit and hi-tech gear eating a folded New York slice, the orange grease dripping down the crease in the crust. The news always make her out to be some sort of seductive and dangerous femme fatale, overlooking the pragmatic, cynical, and sharp-witted woman beneath the mask. Who has gross taste in pizza.

“Why do you care so much about this chick?” Black Cat asks, flipping her bangs out of her eyes. “Was it because she kissed you that time?”

They're talking about MJ again. Peter can't help thinking about her all the time, and Black Cat usually humors him when he wants to talk about her, even pretending to be interested in hearing about her.

“What? No, I'd help anyone, no kissing required,” Peter sputters, almost dropping his pizza.

Black Cat smirks at him incredulously. “You think rescuing her will help you get into her pants, Spider?”

“Michelle doesn't need any rescuing," he replies confidently, regaining his composure as he takes a big bite of pizza. "I'm just helping her with her cases. You know, scouting, getting intel and evidence, that kinda stuff. Because we're partners. Not to get into her pants. Not everything is about that, Cat.”

She rolls her eyes and tosses her uneaten crust back into the empty pizza box. “First off, yes it is. The rise and fall of nations, religion, and famous men have been because of sex. But secondly, she has a boyfriend, you know. Not that I have any qualms about getting some side action, but Michelle would. And her boyfriend's actually a really decent guy.”

Peter perks up. When would the Black Cat have heard nice things about Peter Parker? Did MJ bring him up in their interview? “You really think so? Did she say something about him? What did she say about P—uh, this guy?”

The masked woman frowns, contemplating something until recognition flashes across her eyes and her mouth drops open. “Oh my god. _Peter_?”

He feels his face going pale beneath his mask. The cold dread in his chest is starting to turn into a full blown panic attack, and he wishes his mask wasn't pulled up over his nose right now. 

“What? No! I mean, what? Who's that? What? Peter who?”

How could she figure him out after a single meeting with MJ? Did she follow him yesterday when he met up with MJ for movie night in the park? 

Cat glares at him with her arms folded across her chest. "Parker. If I wasn't certain before, your high-pitched rambling would have just confirmed it for me."

“Wait. How do you know what MJ's boyfriend sounds like?”

Blowing a long exasperated exhale at her bangs, the Black Cat takes off her goggles that masked the top half her face.

“Felicia?!” Pulling the rest of his mask off, Peter gapes at her, feeling like the most oblivious idiot on the planet. “What the f—”

“Don’t act so surprised that _I’m_ the Black Cat,” she sneers, snatching Peter’s mask out of his hands. “I’m the one that should be shocked that dweeby Peter Parker is Spider-Man.”

“Hey!” He makes to grab his mask back, but Felicia fluidly jumps over his head and evades his reach.

“No wonder you keep stalking Michelle,” she continues, fingering the red mask in her hands. “I was worried we had a Spidey-creep on our hands.”

Peter lets out an indignant sound that _might_ be considered a squawk. “What? You two crossed paths with my patrol route sometimes.”

“I saw you following us that first night, when we went out clubbing,” Felicia counters, leaning in close. Her lips curl into a predatory smile. “Unless you usually lurk around the Meatpacking District on Saturday nights. Tell me, did you like watching us, Spider?”

-*-

"You wouldn't understand. We’re not all super-powered like you, going around pulling heroic stunts whenever you want. You don't know what it's like to finally get a chance to save your dad, to be _so_ close, and then not being able to do it, Spider.” 

The Black Cat’s words keep replaying in his head, over and over. She's asked him to help her before—usually after patrol or when she thinks he's in a particularly good mood, except she asked him as Felicia this time, as a friend instead of a criminal negotiating with Spider-Man. They were at her penthouse and she was out of costume, a gesture of trust that he appreciated. It was the first time he's ever seen the Black Cat—Felicia—serious; no flirty banter or cutting remarks. 

She still smacked him and then took a swing at him when he said no, though.

Her teary face was hard and determined, heartbroken, when she pleaded her case. “It's just… there's no line I wouldn't cross for the people I love—and there aren't many of them. Do you know what that feels like?”

_With great power comes…_

"Fuck..." Sighing in defeat, Peter knows what his choice is going to be, even if it’s going to be illegal in so many ways. But then he hears MJ in his head reminding him that there is no such thing as a completely right or good choice; the important thing is having each other’s backs and trusting the people he cares about. 

When Peter catches up with Felicia, she’s waiting for him on a rooftop not far from his and MJ's apartment, having just dropped off MJ after their encounter with the three assholes who were following her home.

"Fine, I'll do it, Cat. I'll help you get your dad out."

Her entire face lights up under her goggles. "And here I was, thinking I already had my evening nicely planned. A little innocent art theft followed by hot cocoa and some steamy chick-lit..." **

"Cat! You said you'd stop stealing!"

Peter knows he has to turn Felicia in if he catches her committing any crimes as the Black Cat again, but he really doesn't want to do it. Not only because he considers Felicia a friend now, but because MJ would be furious. It would be exactly what she accused Spider-Man of doing—blindly following the rules and indiscriminately handing criminals over to the police. 

"I said I wouldn't have enough time to burgle if you kept me busy, Spider," she winks, flipping her ponytail around.

" _Leesh_ , could you be serious for a second? Just once, for this?"

"Like a fucking heart attack," she nods solemnly, giving him a boy scout salute. "And stop dropping my out-of-costume name around. God, you're so bad at this. I'm embarrassed that it took me as long as it did to figure you out." 

Peter raises an eyebrow at her. "If I help you, will you at least stop terrorizing MJ?"

"Terrorizing? I fucking saved her ass tonight," Felicia scoffs. "Not just by knocking out those creeps coming after her. I taught her how to defend herself, which _you_ should have done yourself a long time ago. Being Spider-Man's girlfriend can be dangerous business."

"I know it is," Peter replies darkly. He could barely keep his rage under control earlier that night when he roughly strung up MJ's attackers over a street lamp, leaving them hanging like sacks of garbage. Maybe he should have let Felicia finish them off like she wanted to.

"She did good tonight," says Felicia, sitting down next to him over the rooftop ledge. "Took out the big guy all by herself." 

Peter grunts but doesn't say anything, and just stares out into the cityscape glittering against night sky. 

Felicia scoots closer next to him. "You never answered my question from before, about why you're so obsessed with her." 

"Why do you care?" 

_“_ I'm just curious.”

“I heard that's bad for cats.”

"Ooh, so touchy tonight, Spider—and not in the good way," she says, resting her head on Peter's shoulder. "Come on. Tell me about Michelle."

He turns his head slightly to look at Felicia and exhales slowly, searching for the right words. "She just makes me excited to be alive. Like, my first thought when I wake up in the morning is ‘wow, I’m with MJ’ and _then_ I remember that I’m Spider-Man, which is also awesome. You think that's dumb, don't you?"

To Peter's surprise, Felicia shakes her head. "Everyone needs something, or someone, to get them out of their life once in a while."*** Her lips twitch into a wry smile. "And this is our _real_ life, isn't it? The whole costumed vigilante bit. The rest of it, the civilian part, that's the distraction."

"What about you, Cat? Do you want someone to get you out of this life once in a while?"

"I told you before, I don't like getting tied down," Felicia says quietly, using her clawed index finger to scratch a cartoon cat onto the cement surface they’re sitting on.

Peter shakes his head. "Being with MJ is the complete opposite of being tied down. When I know she's there, in my life, I feel like I can do anything. She makes me feel… free, like I can’t ever fall.”****

"That's because Michelle's different," Felicia replies matter-of-factly, moving onto scratching a spider next to the cat cartoon. "She can make anything fun, even without a costume." 

"Yeah, MJ's amazing," Peter sighs, thinking about her passion for justice, her dark sense of humor, and the way she can drop a devastating one-liner with such ease. 

As if reading his mind, a sly look crosses Felicia’s face and she looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “Ever consider getting her in on the fun? Suit her up in a sexy little spandex number, tricked out with all the best tech, the whole works. Turn this duo into a… threesome?”

Peter wrinkles his nose. “That was a weak one, Cat. Zero points for the pun. And no, I don’t want MJ mixed up with all this vigilante stuff. She’s already too involved, too exposed. If I was a better person, I’d break things off with her completely. The Bugle photo thing was almost a disaster.”

Felicia elbows him hard. “Oh god, not that martyr complex again. What is it with male superheroes and the need to make everything about themselves? Michelle’s exposed to danger whether or not she’s your girl, Spider. She should at least be prepared to deal with things by herself.”

Peter can't argue with that, so he says nothing. He doesn't like the idea of MJ in any danger, but Felicia was right; he couldn't always be there to protect her. 

They sit in companionable silence for a bit as she continues scratching away at her graffiti. 

“You ever think about finding someone who can fit into both sides of your life?” Peter asks.

Felicia rolls her eyes. "No thanks. Some things I do better alone." With a quick peck on his masked cheek, Felicia hops onto her feet and checks her suit before shooting a grappling hook into the air. " _Some_ things. Meet me at my place tomorrow night to go over the plan," she says, looking back over her shoulder, and takes off into the night.

Peter stays behind and studies Felicia's graffiti for a moment before heading home: two cartoon cat heads and their pet spider inside a funny-shaped heart. 

-*-

Peter is picking up lunch at his usual spot again. While waiting in line to pay, his gaze wanders to the table where MJ and Harry were sitting when he ran into them last week. She had looked so angry that day; MJ had spent emotional energy on Harry _fucking_ Osborn. Not cool disdain or indifference, but fury and wrath. Peter knows he shouldn’t care. But he does. He really, really does.

But Aunt May taught him that love isn't a feeling, but an act; it's the deliberate and conscious choice to take a leap of faith with someone. “Love is letting someone in close enough so that they can really hurt you, but also trusting them not to,” she had said, her brown doe eyes magnified behind her vintage glasses. “Love is making those choices over and over again, every day. Together.”

So he chooses to give MJ the benefit of the doubt and to give her the space she needs to be angry. Besides, as much as he doesn't understand what has been eating at her these past few weeks, he knows they'll get through it. They always do. He doesn’t mind the way they make up after their fights, either. 

With his enhanced senses, Peter could still smell the sex on MJ at the gala, his scent all over her from the night before, even beneath her floral perfume. It turned him on so much that he could barely keep his focus on anything at the party, much less his mission to stalk Norman for her. 

Waking up with MJ in his arms the next morning was even better. At first, he wasn’t sure where things stood between them, but he couldn’t help running his fingertips along the flawless lines of her face anyway, and stroking the curves of her warm body. She smiled dreamily at him and pulled him closer, dispelling any of his doubts, and tenderly kissed him back when he slid a hand down between her legs. Her own wandering hands were groping his muscles beneath his shirt, and she gladly yielded to him when he climbed on top of her.

They never took their eyes off each other while he moved inside her. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her full lips parted as she exhales soft little pants. MJ was so wet and tight around him, but it was the openness and trust in her eyes that undid him.

In a moment of thoughtlessness, when he was too overwhelmed by the taste of her skin and the heat of their entwined bodies, Peter had murmured into her neck, “I love you, Em.”

Luckily, she didn’t hear his foolish declaration, and when she asked him what he said, he just shook his head and told her it was nothing. Nothing at all.

But it wasn’t nothing. Something felt different that morning, and Peter thinks MJ sensed it, too. She would kill him for thinking of it as making love, but that’s what it felt like, and he’s not sorry for it. 

Pleasantly distracted, Peter leaves the sandwich shop through a side door to take a shortcut back to Stark Tower. As he turns the corner past a row of parked trucks, his Spider-sense goes off, but he feels the needle sinking into his neck before he can react, and everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Spider-Man and the Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do #2 (2002)  
> ** Venom Vs. Carnage Vol. 1 #2 (2004)  
> *** Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #607 (2009)  
> **** Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2 #50 (2003)


	15. Michelle XI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ goes Die Hard-mode to rescue her love interest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Track:[ “Battle Cry”](https://open.spotify.com/track/13kiXTWqDhjZFh6A8dsJvl?si=znVHGQmdSNysn9z3tTc4fA) by Angel Haze 
> 
> Alright, you beautiful people: I originally meant for this fic to be a bunch of smutty Peter x MJ scenes, but somehow a plot snuck in, so here we are. Bear with me, please! Writing action is not my forte 😬 But let me know what you think! Down to improve however I can.
> 
> TW: Blood / guns / violence (I don't tag my smut because I assume that's what y'all are here for, but not necessarily the bing blam action)

Detecting her motion in the room, the overhead lights flicker on to illuminate an entire hallway of frosted glass walls sectioning off what appeared to be examination rooms. Shadowy movements within the rooms cast eerie shapes along the unmarked walls and glass doors, and MJ shivers despite herself.

Trying to sprint silently down the hall but only managing an awkward half-run and half-creep, MJ tries not to wonder what’s going on in those rooms and why there are no guards around. With a sickening feeling, she quickly realizes this is not a medical facility at all, but rather some sort of laboratory for testing and experimentation. 

Sitting on the floor, someone is slumped against the glass inside one of the rooms, unmoving, while another figure paces within the confines of the adjacent cell. She shudders but doesn’t slow down as she makes her way toward where the main research labs should be.

Dressed in a black turtleneck over the bulletproof vest she got from Felicia, black yoga leggings, and Peter's stealth suit mask—the only Spidey mask without a biometric lock on it nor, unfortunately, any of the AI tech—MJ is not even remotely camouflaged in the bright white facility. She looks like a ninja creeping around a damn Apple store.

She is definitely going to die tonight. This is so stupid.

Making her way down to the end of the hall, MJ sneaks into the control room where there’s a wall of monitors showing the examination rooms and the subjects within. Each screen displays a different serial number preceded by the letters 'OZ'. Some of the rooms are empty, perhaps only for periodic “treatments,” but others contain a patient—or prisoner, if there was a difference. Some are curled up on the floor or cot, shaking and shivering, and others are manically moving around the small space like a caged animal. She takes a few photos and videos with her cellphone. 

An eerie feeling of recognition creeps up the back of MJ’s neck. Some of the test subjects have strange protrusions out of their heads, almost like horns, or elongated chins and ears. Others are covered in scaly patches, similar to MJ’s mother’s rashes but thicker and covering more of their bodies. One of the subjects is standing catatonically in the middle of the cell, staring blankly toward the security camera with their big bulging eyes while the tiny pupils pinpoint with miosis. Another subject is scratching at the glass walls with their long claw-like nails, hard quills lining their back.

MJ isn’t sure if she is disappointed or glad that Peter doesn’t appear to be in any of the cells being monitored, but she is eager to leave as soon as she can. Taking a few more pictures of the notes on a whiteboard and test results left on a desk, it gradually dawns on her that this OZ formula isn’t meant to be a cure for anything; whoever is conducting these experiments is looking for enhanced strength, agility, endurance, and reflexes.

But it appears every formulation of this OZ chemical also has highly undesirable side effects, from hideous physical deformities to behavioral and neurological problems—just like the symptoms exhibited by the patients that underwent the Oscorp treatments, including MJ’s mother. 

Her mother died the way she did for a billionaire madman’s delusional quest for more power. MJ clenches her fists so tightly that her nails dig painfully into her palms. She doesn’t feel as hotly furious as she expects; she doesn’t want to kick and scream and trash the lab. Instead, a cold hard resolve solidifies inside her, like a deep well inside her heart that gives her a strange new feeling of purpose and limitless dark rage to fuel her. 

Norman Osborn, the man she is going to spend her every last ounce of strength to destroy, won’t see her coming until it’s too late, she decides. Somehow, she is going to make him pay for what he’s done to her mother and the other patients, and for what he’s done to those lab prisoners on the screens before her.

Just as she finishes taking photos of the lab, MJ can hear heavy footsteps outside coming closer, so she hurries into an adjoining lab to hide. “Fuck! Fuckity fuck…” she mutters to herself, crouching low. Someone was bound to come for her, even if it’s near midnight and she had slipped into the building like a shadow.

Unfortunately, the smaller room she just scurried into is a dead end, and she can hear the guard’s heavy steps enter the control room. Her hand nervously checks that the taser Felicia gave her is still strapped to her leg as she listens to the guard come closer, and her heart freezes when he enters the room.

“You! Hands up!” the guard growls, pointing a bright flashlight at MJ. He does a double take, nearly dropping the light. “[N-Night Monkey](https://youtu.be/l6WEvHsvzOQ)?”

Taking advantage of his momentary confusion, MJ kicks the flashlight out of his hands and tackles him before he can grab his pistol. They tussle against each other in the dark, with MJ trying to keep him from contacting anyone or triggering an alarm.

Unfortunately, he succeeds just before she knocks him out with a fire extinguisher that she grabs from the bracket mounted by the door, and a loud siren goes off throughout the building as bright lights start flashing.

MJ takes off running out of the lab, her heart hammering in her ribcage as she frantically retraces her steps back out. She can’t breathe, but her legs keep going on their own as fear and panic course through her veins. 

Heavy boots start thundering towards her, forcing her to take a turn into an unfamiliar corridor, and she has no idea which way she’s going anymore. Her beginner's luck is quickly running out, and she has lost her only advantage. The guard she managed to knock out was just an unsuspecting patrol; the rest of them will be on alert now.

 _Wow, I’m actually going to die tonight_ , MJ thinks hysterically. _And I haven't even found Peter yet._

 _Peter_. 

A desperate and delirious urge to laugh and cry bubbles up inside her. MJ tries to recall their last kiss from this morning, to make the feeling and taste of Peter's lips her last memory if she has to.

But her panicked mind can only remember all the times she _didn't_ kiss him when she could have—the nights they went to bed angry, the mornings she left before he woke up, and every time she turned her head so his lips would miss her cheek. 

Skidding to a halt before entering another wing of the building, MJ ducks and hears voices shouting commands, catching bits of "Night Monkey" and "is taller than she looked on TV."

Doubling back, she tries another route to get away from the voices and footsteps, but a guard in a green uniform catches sight of her. He shouts at her to stop and points a pistol at her.

 _Don’t get shot in the head, don’t get shot in the head,_ MJ chants to herself in her mind as she prepares herself for her next move. Her entire body is shaking with adrenaline. 

With her hands raised in the air in surrender, she lets the guard come a step closer, then grabs his arm at the wrist and spins the gun away from her. She twists his arm around until he drops the weapon, just like Felicia showed her, and kicks it across the floor away from them.

When the guard lunges for her with an angry shout, MJ turns to side-step out of his reach and jabs her elbow into his face. He stumbles, more stunned than hurt, and she takes advantage of his momentary lapse to hook a leg around his knees, making him land on the ground hard. 

MJ starts running before he can get up again, and finds herself in another hall of examination rooms with shadows of the disturbing subjects on the other side of the frosted glass walls. Maybe she could hide in one of them, pretend she is just another fucked-up science experiment until the guards... what? Give up? Decide it was all a false alarm and go home? She is so fucked.

Ducking into an empty cell anyway, she decides she can at least buy herself some time and maybe find something she can use to defend herself. It looks like the other cells she saw in the control room footage, except there’s a large metal case where the examination table should be. 

Cold air hisses out when she opens it, followed by an icy fog that cascades to the floor, and she’s greeted with a rows of glass vials about the size of wine bottles. They're filled with thick liquid in varying shades of dark to light green, reminiscent of plant seedlings in a nursery or jars of jam curing. _Is this a batch of that OZ stuff?_ MJ wonders, running her fingers against the cold glass. 

The one filled with ominous black fluid catches her eye; it’s opaque and thicker than the others, like melted tar rather than a translucent green serum. MJ takes it out of the case and tucks the glass canister under her arm; this could be the evidence she needs on OsCorp, if she manages to get out of here alive in order to test it.

Meanwhile, the security sirens keep blaring throughout the building, and the guards she has run into have undoubtedly confirmed her presence to their commanders, because soon even more guards flood the hallway outside the examination room she’s hiding in. MJ can see the dark shapes on the other side of the glass and counts the seconds until one of them inevitably discovers her. 

But after several loud grunts of pain, gunfire goes off and a fight breaks out; a few of the guards sound like they’re going down, and MJ can make out only maybe two or three figures still standing, but she can’t tell who’s side they’re on.

Without any warning, the glass door of the cell MJ is hiding in explodes and shatters into pieces as the heavy body of a guard comes crashing through. He lands on the ground on a pile of crushed equipment, unconscious.

A dark figure dives into the cell after him, landing on their feet in a low crouch. MJ, who was covering her head with her arms against the glass raining down on her, peeks out at the intruder from under the crook of her arm.

The Black Cat— _Felicia_ —stares back, her severe expression quickly melting into delight. “You again! You really have a knack for getting into trouble, kitty. What have you gotten yourself into this time? Love the mask! The black suit really is the best Spider costume.”

MJ shakes the shards of glass out of her hair and stares back at her with equal astonishment. “What the fuck, Felicia?! Where—how—”

Leaning over MJ, Felicia hisses, “Rule number one of masked vigilante club is we don’t out each other’s civilian name. Ugh, you’re almost as bad as Spider is!”

“Sorry, I didn’t get the fucking memo!” MJ shouts back at her. “What are you even doing here? I thought this didn’t have anything to do with you. Or did you just get bored hanging around drinking wine alone at home?”

“Rude! Who do you think provided cover for you during your little scavenger hunt?” Felicia stands up and rests her hands on her hips indignantly. “Who do you think took down the guards in your way so you could investigate undisturbed? Did you really think you get this far by accident? I’m sorry my efforts insufficient, _your highness,_ ” she bows exaggeratedly and snaps to stand again, arching her back to emphasize her perfect hourglass waist-to-hip proportions in the black suit. “Though, I might have underestimated how many reserves they would send after us...”

“If you were going to come help anyway, why did you let me think I was coming in here alone? I was fucking terrified! Why the hell do you keep fucking with my head like this?”

Felicia shrugs, unrepentant. “That’s for ghosting me for no reason, and then picking Osborn junior over me and Peter. You know, some art pieces lose their value if you separate them from the set they belong to.” Extending a gloved hand to help Michelle up, she smiles again. “Bet you missed having me around tonight, huh? Now move that butt, we gotta get out of here before the goons—”

Unfortunately, said goons had caught up to them, and a dozen more guards storm the hallway, all holding rifles. Dropping MJ’s hand, Felicia turns toward their oncoming opponents with a hungry look and lunges.

Although smooth and graceful on her toes, she fights with a barely-restrained brutality. MJ has never seen Spider-Man resort to lethal force with human opponents, but Felicia—the Black Cat—seems almost gleeful to unleash her ferocity on the OsCorp guards, meeting them with fatal strikes at the onset.

MJ has studied enough videos of Spider-Man in action to see how he always aims to quickly disarm first, then immobilize his enemies. Black Cat, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care how she stops her foes. She slashes at their weak spots around joints, heel tendons, and behind the knees, leaving the bulletproof-vested guards curling on the floor as they slowly bleed out. 

When one of the guards aims his rifle at Felicia while she’s busy repeatedly slashing the face of another guard, MJ shocks him in the back with her taser gun and watches him convulse and go down; his limbs twitch grotesquely but he’s unconscious.

“Thanks for the cover, lover! Spider never lets me have any real fun,” Black Cat pants, wiping flecks of someone else's blood off her jaw.

Adjusting her mask, MJ exhales uneasily but follows the other woman anyway. As they make their way to the exit from the examination wing, the last guard left stands in their way. 

“You're not getting away, you dumb bitches. Backup is getting here in seconds and we're all gonna _take turns_ making you pay!” 

Black Cat sighs, bored. “Did you miss the part where we just laid waste to your loser squad?”

“There’s more of us coming, tons more. You think two little girls can take us all on? You think this is a little game? Better pray you sluts can take five of us at a time—each. Might have to double up in a hole—” 

MJ realizes too late that he's been slowly making to draw his gun while he was talking, but Black Cat's hand snatches it out of his holster before he can even turn to look down in confusion. When the guard looks back up, she already has his own gun pointed at his face. He blanches, eyes wide, and—without waiting for any final entreaties from him—Black Cat pulls the trigger.

The gunshot echoes throughout the cavernous hall of glass and steel. MJ thinks she gasped out loud when she watched the guard fall limply to the ground, his blood splattered on the white wall behind him. But she could very well have remained completely silent and frozen in place. 

“His last words ever were ‘double up in a hole.’ That dumb fuck! Hah!” Black Cat cackles, gesturing at MJ to follow her. “They should put that on his tombstone or something.”

She drops the gun on its deceased owner's lap on their way out of the hallway, and MJ’s head jerks back to stare at the guard one last time and the execution-styled exit wound coming out of the back of his skull.

For the first time, Michelle seriously considers the possibility that Felicia might be more than just a manipulative and conniving flirt; she could maybe be a certifiable psychopath and genuinely dangerous. She always thought Black Cat was just a sexy cat burglar with good persona branding, not a killer. Did Peter know Felicia was like this? 

“I thought you were in a hurry to get to your boytoy! Come on!”

Tucking the glass container securely under her arm again, MJ swallows a gulp even though her mouth has been bone dry from fear for hours and follows Felicia out of the examination wing in search of Peter.

-*-

"You know what your problem is?"

"I’m sure you’re about to tell me," MJ grumbles. 

Using some gadget of hers, Felicia had set off an electromagnetic pulse that short-circuited the electricity in the wing they’re currently in, frying the security cameras and allowing the two of them to sneak by in the dark, undetected. Heading toward the last of the three examination halls where MJ suspects—hopes—to find Peter, she thanks Valkyrie that the black Spider-mask at least gives her night vision. 

"You take everything _so seriously_ ," replies Felicia, undeterred by MJ’s curtness. "Have some fun with this! Even Spider can crack a joke in a fight—too many jokes, actually." 

"Don’t talk about him."

MJ startles when she feels the other woman’s hand squeeze her shoulder. "Hey. He’s fine, kitty," Felicia says in the dark. "And he’ll still be fine when we get to him." 

Shrugging her off, MJ doesn’t say anything and keeps walking. 

Instead of frosted tempered glass, the cells in this examination wing are walled off by steel and concrete. MJ swallows the lump in her throat when she sees a door beneath a sign that read ‘Mortuary / Disposal’. Whereas the previous labs were set up for ongoing observation, this one seems to be where the actual experiments occur before the surviving subjects are moved. Or disposed of, apparently.

Felicia goes in first since her augmented contact lenses can detect infrared thermal images, such as body heat signatures. The lenses also make her eyes appear bright blue instead of her usual green. But MJ still finds it inexcusable that she didn’t recognize the Black Cat was right in front of her all summer—they had sleepovers, went to art museums and gallery openings together, shared meals. So much for being observant, MJ thinks to herself; this whole summer, she's only been seeing what she wanted to.

Motioning for MJ to stop, Felicia whispers, "Got two patrols up ahead, looks like they're the only ones right now. I can take them out real quick—"

"As in knock them unconscious?"

"You’re cute." Felicia flexes her fingers and all ten claws come out. "I mean, if they survive, then good for them." 

"Black Cat, you're killing people!" MJ hisses.

"No. I'm killing _men_ ," she scoffs, waving her clawed hand dismissively in the air. "Besides, this is the job they signed up for. You know how important a man's _career_ is to him, above everything else. You're not trying to stop them from doing their _jobs_ are you?"

MJ bites her lip just in time to keep from laughing out loud, but still snorts in amusement. Felicia winks at her from beneath her goggles before slinking around the corner. After a surprised shout, several grunts, and the sound of some tussling, MJ hears the heavy thump of bodies hitting the ground and makes her way to follow the Black Cat.

_-*-_

"Peter!" 

Sitting upright while strapped to an examination chair, Peter startles and flexes against his restraints, but his head quickly falls back, exhausted. 

Leaning over him, MJ cups his ashen face in her hands, tilting him up to look at her. Frantically checking him for any visible sign of injury, she lifts his eyelids one by one and brushes his curly hair back from his clammy forehead. He appears awake but groggy, his red-rimmed eyes unfocused and head hanging heavy. 

"What… who are… this isn't real, this isn't…" Peter slurs his words and stares up at her in bewilderment, trying to shake her off, and MJ realizes she still has the black Spidey mask on. 

She tugs the mask off, letting her hair fall over her shoulders, and presses her hand against Peter’s cold cheek. "Sorry, sorry! It's me, MJ."

“MJ? What are you doing here?" His glassy eyes look tired but relieved.

"Are you okay? What did they do to you?" She starts to undo the restraints on him, tugging the straps off while inspecting the rest of him for any trauma.

"I… I don’t know. I was getting my sandwich... then someone stuck me in the neck, I think… and I woke up here. I feel weird, MJ. Like, I can’t… I can’t feel my Spider-sense, and everything is all… muted. That was a really strong tranquilizer...”

Running her fingers through his sweaty hair, MJ frets over Peter, touching his face and checking his arms to distract herself from the boiling anger in her stomach. How dare they do this to him, of all people? He's so _good_ , the best person she knows, and he never gets a break. She's going to make sure someone pays for this, starting with Norman.

“But they haven’t come back to check on you yet?" MJ asks. "To do any… experiments, or inject you with other stuff?”

Peter shakes his head weakly, groaning from the effort. "I think I metabolised the tranquilizer faster than they’re expecting, so they haven't been back yet, at least I don't think..."

As he regains his senses, panic flashes across his face. “Wait, how did you get in here? Did they get you, too? Em—”

“No, we snuck in.”

“We?” Peter peers over MJ’s shoulder and sees Felicia on the lookout by the door. He knits his brows together and tries to get up. “Cat! I can’t believe you brought her here—”

“Peter!" MJ rests a calming hand against his shoulder. " _I_ brought us here, to look for you. Now listen to me, okay? You have your nano web shooters, right? Maybe without your Spidey suit on, if you pretend they’re grappling hooks, we could get out of here without OsCorp realizing you’re Spider-Man.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got ‘em,” he replies distractedly. It takes him two tries to activate his web-shooters into cuffs. 

Tucking the glass cannister of black goo back under her arm, MJ tugs the black Spidey mask back over her face and takes Peter’s by the hand. “Okay, good, let’s get out of here.”

As the three of them make their way out of the cell and down the corridor, MJ explains to Peter their escape plan: get up to the topmost floor and out of the building through the roof, while Felicia rigs booby trapped explosives along the way to buy them enough time to get out. 

Before they get to the utility stairway that leads up to the mechanical floor with roof access, MJ hears heavy footsteps and shouting approaching them.

“Hey, kids,” Felicia calls over her shoulder. “We’ve got some friends incoming!”

A squadron of about two dozen guards arrive and make to surround the three of them, a mix of pistols and assault rifles drawn. Felicia grabs MJ by the arm and pushes her toward the utility stairwell, hissing at her to make a run for it, and she obeys. Flinching when she hears the first peal of gunfire, MJ focuses on the yellow door leading to the stairwell and tries not to imagine what might be happening to Felicia and Peter behind her. 

She shrieks when a few stray shots fly over her head, and continues sprinting with her head ducked down, which slows her pace even further as she totes the heavy container of black liquid in her arms. 

“Night Monkey! You’re not getting away, euro trash!” a guard shouts behind her, and she feels the gunshot before she even registers hearing the pistol.

Fuck! It figures that when she finally gets shot, it's on her arm and not somewhere covered by her vest. Her entire arm feels like it's on fire, the intense pain making her dizzy. Turning around, she shoots the taser in the guards direction without stopping to look and aim, but it manages to hit him in the neck and he goes down, cursing viciously.

“You better stay down if you don’t want the Black Cat finishing you off,” MJ shouts, taking off again for the yellow door. After she makes it to the stairwell, an aching pain starts to radiate around the gunshot wound, and she feels like her arm got hit with a metal bat rather than a bullet. Panting as she grips her injured arm, MJ clambors up the stairs, counting the seconds until Peter and Felicia catch up to her. 

And they _will_ catch up to her. Those OsCorp guards are small time for Spider-Man and the Black Cat, right? Even with so many assailants, they’ve probably dealt with worse. Or, at least, Peter has dealt with worse odds.

But he was still so disoriented when she last left him, without his Spider-sense and unable to make full use of his web-shooters without arousing suspicion. MJ clutches onto the glass cylinder for comfort and tries to ignore how much her aching arm was killing her.

“Whoo!” Felicia’s gleeful shout echoes up and down the stairwell, followed by the clang of a grappling hook swinging over and latching onto a railing. When she comes zipping straight up from the bottom floor with Peter in tow, MJ lets out the breath she’s been holding for the last few flights of stairs, and stomps up the last few steps to the top floor. 

“One softboy delivery coming up,” Felicia calls out as they reach MJ, and Peter comes barreling toward her and takes her into his arms.

"You two head up to the roof and swing outta here, and I'll detonate the bomb sequence and catch up with you guys after."

“No, I’ll do it,” says Peter, releasing MJ from his embrace. “You take MJ and go.”

"So only Spider gets to play big damn hero? So greedy," says Felicia as she starts to step backwards toward the stairwell. Peter advances towards her and she gets into a defensive stance, detonator in hand. “It’s my equipment, so I’m going to handle it. Take Michelle and go!”

“This wasn’t your fight, Cat. Thank you for helping us, but you don’t have to finish this,” Peter pants, and lunges for the detonator but Felicia tucks and rolls out of the way. “I’m serious! If you think you owe me anything—”

“I don’t!”

“Then let me do it. I’m quicker and I can take the blast if anything goes wrong—”

When he webs the device out of her hand, Felicia jumps onto him and twists her legs around his neck, locking his torso between her arms. "Get off!" Peter growls, wriggling against her chokehold.

"Oh, trust me, lover," she grits back, locking her arms together. "That's always my goal."

"I’m serious, Cat! Just take MJ and run! Please! I’ll set off the bomb."

MJ watches them fight, gripping onto her arm as the throbbing gets worse, and she can feel the blood soaking through her black turtleneck even if she can’t see it. She want to yell at them to stop wasting time, but her head is feeling woozier by the second.

As she feared, a group of about a dozen fresh guards catch up to them, led by the one she tasered and left alive downstairs, like a soft-hearted idiot. There will be more coming now, with the entire compound on alert.

Peter quickly springs apart from Felicia and turns to face their new assailants, taking them on two at a time, punching and kicking methodically. He’s more alert than when she first found him in the cell, but his reflexes are still slower than usual, and he's not using his webs.

Meanwhile, Felicia faces off against three guards warily, her arms open and ready for a defensive strike, but her footsteps are soft as she slinks around them. She feints and bats at one, testing and retreating, and continues to pad around them patiently. An electrical explosive goes off behind them when one of the guards steps backwards onto the booby trap; one of them falls over the stairway railing and the other two are blown back from the shock.

"Never let the Black Cat cross your path!" Felicia cackles as she lunges toward her next targets.

Kneeling low to the ground, MJ takes out her taser with shaking hands and tries to reload it, but screams when some stray shots fly her way. A bullet hits her canister of OZ liquid but it ricochets off the metal casing, leaving the glass vial intact. 

That was too close. MJ gulps and nestles the container closer to her chest, smearing blood from her arm onto it. But a barrage of bullets hit her in the chest immediately after, and the impact against the kevlar vest knocks the wind out of her and she falls backwards, landing hard on her backside. She thinks she hears Peter shout for her, but she isn’t sure.

Wondering if she has any broken ribs, MJ looks down in a daze and catches sight of the cracked and empty glass cylinder with dismay. The contents must have leaked out through the cracks. Fuck—her evidence!

Frantically looking around despite the searing aches wracking her entire body, she can’t see where the black liquid went. Even just a drop of it… anything. She’s so tired, but she manages to stagger back onto her feet and drop the broken and bloodied container onto the floor. She refuses to be dead weight and reaches for her taser.

When she looks up, MJ makes eye contact with the guard she tasered before as he aims his gun at her. 

“I should’ve finished you off,” she snarls, exhausted, and watches the charged wires and prongs eject from her weapon toward him while the combustion at the end of his assault rifle goes off in a spray. MJ feels the bullets hit her gut beneath where her vest coverage ends and explode on impact, searing hot as they tear up her insides.

A delirious urge to laugh bubbles up inside her. She can’t believe this is happening, that this is how it ends. It’s almost anti-climactic, MJ thinks as the darkness starts to take over her field of vision, her hands wrapped around the mess of her bowels. 

She can't feel anything. She hopes she goes quickly before she can feel any more pain, or has to go through the slow agony of gangrene or sepsis when the contents of her intestines poison her bloodstream.

A hot wetness runs over her hands and down over her legs—her blood, she's losing too much blood.

But then it turns cold and thick, sliding all over her palms, and she has the sickening thought that she’s feeling her guts spill out. With the last of her strength, she glances down and wonders why her organs and blood are all shiny and black. That can't be good.

"I can't believe I'm going to die in yoga pants," MJ mumbles weakly, closing her eyes, and then she doesn’t see or feel anything anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A smutless chapter? How rude of me!
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	16. Michelle XII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath and epilogue bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Track: ["Die Young"](https://open.spotify.com/track/1BRwuvjhkgezmv1gcI6lT6?si=qoZtZtBxRQWSzLbxdwOQrA) by Sylvan Esso  
>   
> We finally made it! Thank you everyone for coming along this journey with me, especially to my beta readers and all the comments & kudos that have kept me motivated and inspired!
> 
> I also super love comments that were just like "I see what you did there!!!" You guys are awesome.

_Slowly parting her legs, MJ moaned in unexpected pleasure at the feeling of the cold mass engulfing her body. The black ooze was spreading all over her, simultaneously caressing and coating her exposed skin as it slid up her inner thighs, covered her breasts, and molded to the contours of her legs._

_Then he was on top of her, Peter in his red and blue Spider-Man suit, his hips nestled between her legs as he braced himself over her. MJ smiled and reached out for him, her heart beating excitedly._

_With a shudder, the black mass slithered off her body and latched onto Spider-Man, stretching over his head and body until it formed a shiny black suit with a white spider emblem across his chest._

_His white eyes stared down at her silently as he slowly pushed himself inside her. She gasped and pulled him close, feeling the cold ooze expand from his body to envelop her, filling her deep inside..._

Waking up in some sort of hospital room, MJ groans and the sterile white lights are almost too much for her eyes. She's trying to hold onto the last vestiges of her dream, but it's slipping away too quickly and she can only recall the way it had made her anxious and aroused at the same time.

Peter is by her side, holding onto her hand and rubbing the top of her knuckles with his thumb. If she had to guess in her hazy state, they're probably in the medical bay at the Avengers Tower upstate.

MJ smiles wanly at him. "Hey, loser."

He sighs heavily with relief and leans over her to cup her face and press a kiss to her forehead. His eyes are bloodshot and tired, but bright and shining as he stares at her, taking in as much of her face as he can. He lets out a ragged breath and manages to croak out, "Hi."

MJ tries not to let a groan out when she sits up too quickly, impatient to get closer to him, but he would have heard it anyway. "What happened? How long have I been out?"

Squeezing her hand reassuringly, he takes a deep breath, as if to prepare himself. "You were—you got shot in the arm but it only went through muscle, didn't hit any nerves or arteries."

He pauses, worrying his lip between his teeth. "You also got shot a bunch of times in the chest, but the bulletproof vest saved you. There's some pretty bad bruising underneath from the impact, but your ribs are okay. You didn't need any surgery."

His voice is strained but soft, barely a whisper, and his eyes keep darting around the room until they stop and fixate on her bandaged arm. MJ knows he's thinking about his uncle and all the other people he's loved and lost, about all the times he's failed to save someone—and how close she came to joining the tally. 

"How long was I out?" says MJ, interrupting his despondent stupor.

His face softens when he looks at her again, but he tightens his hold on her hand. "Almost two days. You were totally unconscious and the doctors couldn't tell why."

"My body probably saw a chance to finally fucking sleep uninterrupted for a few days and took it," she chuckles weakly, looking down at their entwined fingers. Peter's knuckles are white with tension, his knee is shaking, and she knows he's bursting to say something. "What is it?"

"Oh god, Em, I was so scared! I don't know what I would've done if you didn't wake up. It was all my fault, I should've been paying attention and never gotten taken in the first place. And you got fucking shot! Multiple times! I should've been by your side the whole time—"

"Hey, hey. Can we save the self-flagellation for another time, tiger?" she says, squeezing his hand. "I'll let you grovel at my feet later. You can even spoon-feed me hospital jello or something. For now let's just, I don't know, enjoy being alive?"

Peter nods and brings her hand to his lips. "Okay, deal. I'm sorry. How are you feeling?"

She stretches her neck and cracks it' side to side. "Actually, I'm feeling pretty good. A bit achy but totally fine." 

Peter looks skeptical, but she is telling the truth. Aside from some tightness in her muscles and a general grogginess from being asleep for days, MJ feels almost better than fine. There is no actual pain in her arm where she had been shot, despite the thick bandages wrapped around her bicep, and her chest feels completely normal, as if she had never been hit there at all.

Her free hand wanders down to her lower stomach and she's met with an eerie feeling that she's forgotten something important. The hospital gown rustles under her touch, but there's nothing unusual she can spot.

MJ clenches her fists when she remembers the case of the OZ fluid that she lost in the mayhem of gunfire, and Peter's pale, sweating face when she first found him, poisoned and scared. "How about you? Are you okay? Did you find out what they drugged you with?"

"No, I metabolised too much of it by the time we got out to test it properly," says Peter, his shoulders slumping dejectedly. "But it was definitely way too strong and fast-acting not to be biochemically enhanced by a place like OsCorp. My Spider-sense didn't fully recover until way after we got out of there. I felt like I was swinging blind, but I had to get you to a hospital, and—and there was so much blood on you! I thought it was yours and I just couldn't think straight, Em, I thought I was losing you—"

"But you didn't," she interrupts gently, sliding her hand back into his. "I'm okay. _We're_ okay. Aren't we?"

He does that thing where he clenches his jaw tight, determined, and nods. His hair is damp and curly, loose and unstyled. "They'll probably make you stay here at least another night before you can come home, but I'll be right here the whole time, if you want me to be," Peter promises.

 _Home is wherever I'm with you_... the cheesy lyrics cross MJ's mind, which must have made her smile because Peter perks up. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," says MJ, shaking her head but still smiling at herself. She's gone soft; Felicia would definitely rib her for that. Furrowing her brows, she looks around the empty medbay. "Where's Felicia?"

A dark shadow crosses Peter’s face and he looks away from her, suddenly tense. "Uh, I didn't tell her that you're in the hospital. Figure I'd have to explain too much other stuff—"

"Peter, I know she's the Black Cat."

He swallows. "Oh."

"Yeah, _oh_ ," says MJ, squinting at him accusingly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I really, really wanted to, but she asked me not to," he replies, brown eyes pleading. But then he takes a deep breath and squares his jaw. "And I also think it's a costume's decision whether or not to come out to someone, plus when and how, if they do decide to. But I really didn't mean to keep you in the dark, MJ."

"It's okay, I believe you, dork. Ended up figuring it out on my own anyway." MJ scratches at her bandages, which are starting to itch. "Would've saved me a lot of angst this summer if I knew the truth sooner. But like you said, she just gets off on fucking with people. Like a cat knocking your shit off the table. She just can't help it."

Peter reaches over to adjust MJ's pillows behind her head so she can sit up more comfortably. "I don't think Cat was a bad person. She just… collateral damage didn't really bother her."

"Or killing people."

He winces. "Yeah, instant kill mode was pretty much her default setting in the beginning. She got a lot better when we started patrolling together, though. I think she was really starting to change."

Biting her lip, MJ doesn't tell him about the guards Felicia gleefully butchered on their way to find him, or how she admitted to being on good behavior just for his sake, not to turn over a new leaf. She frowns. "Wait, why are you referring to her in the past tense? Peter, tell me. Where’s Felicia?"

The haunted look on his face returns. "She—I don’t… she never came to the meetup spot afterwards. I don’t think she made it out, MJ. Felicia’s gone."

MJ sits up abruptly and groans at the tightness of her muscles after days without moving. "No, she’s not. She can’t be."

"I’m sorry, MJ," he says, shaking his head.

"No, you don’t understand," she huffs, sitting up taller. "I’m not in denial or whatever. It’s just that Felicia would never do that. She’d never risk her neck for anyone but herself."

Peter looks nervous, which makes her feel nervous, too. "Yeah, usually. But, well, I may have helped her with something that was big enough to maybe make her want to help us..."

"What are you talking about?"

His eyes dart around the room again and he wrings his fingers nervously until MJ closes his hands in hers again. He clears his throat and looks up at her.

"Felicia's dad, Walter Hardy, was the original Black Cat, and he's still alive. Used to work for the Maggia crime syndicate. But when he wanted to leave, they threatened to come after Felicia and her mom. So he let himself get arrested and cooperated with the FBI, even faked his death so no one would come after his family."

"He’s actually been in prison under a false identity ever since and was getting moved to Riker's this summer, where the Maggia have people on the inside. Felicia got intel that they found out Walter was still alive, and was worried they would finish the hit on him when he got to Riker's. So, she wanted to break him out before that happened."

Understanding dawns on MJ. "That was the big job you helped her with."

Peter nods, rubbing his face wearily; he probably hasn't slept for as long as she has been out cold. "We broke him out while he was getting transported. I wasn't going to do it at first, but then she helped you that night with those creeps who were following you, and, well, it's her _dad_ who she thought was dead for all these years… I can't say I wouldn't consider doing the same thing if I were in her shoes."

MJ thinks she knows what it feels like to be willing to risk everything to protect someone she loves, to knowingly walk into danger to save them despite the risks. But she also knows Felicia would not give up more than she has to for the same results. "I think Felicia faked her death in order to get out of the city without leaving a trail, especially after breaking her dad out. She always meant to leave—she was living out of a hotel suite, for fuck's sake."

"It was a _really_ big explosion, Em. Like a whole series of explosives down the tower. You and I pretty were far away by then, and I could still see the smoke."

"A series of explosions that Felicia rigged up _herself_ to maximize damage and distraction, when we were already out of the compound."

"I guess that could be why she was so adamant about being the one to detonate the whole thing," admits Peter, though he still seems unconvinced.

But MJ just knows in her gut that Felicia is out there. "I also think that the method of her fake demise conveniently took OsCorp off our trails, since they think the dead Black Cat is the one responsible for the rescue. And maybe Night Monkey, her secret European lover. That would be her style. Steppin' out on Spidey, the scandal!"

Confused, Peter just nods, clearly still weighed down by guilt. "I'm sorry everything got so weird this summer. I don't think I do very well with secrets."

"I think I get it," says MJ, smoothing out the anxious line of his brow. "It's hard to explain something when you don't know the whole story yet, especially when it's not your story to tell."

She folds her hands back in her lap, idly picking at the waffle weave on the pilling hospital blanket. "It's just... when I saw the Black Cat and Spider-Man all over the place, I just felt—I was so afraid you wouldn't need me anymore."

MJ knows she sounds pathetic, but she doesn't care anymore. The insecurities, her wounded pride, the comfort in her old habits—it all pales against how close she came to losing Peter, and how close he came to losing her. 

Sitting up, Peter scoots his chair up against the bed and takes her by both hands. "I do! Of course I do. I love you, MJ. I need you. I'm nothing without you."* 

His declaration and delivery is cheesy and over the top, but she thinks he means it. It's also everything she wants to hear, and Peter is looking at her the same way he did the morning after the gala, after he made love to her and held her in the darkness of their room. 

She should know better by now, too, after the Blip and all the fucked up things they've both seen, how fast everything can change. Instead of constantly bracing herself for the worst case, and living a half life because of it, MJ decides she deserves to enjoy the time they do get together.

"I love you, too," MJ whispers back, surprised at how easily the words come to her, and how good it actually feels to say them out loud. Her lungs fill with a lightness she has never felt before. "And whether I _need_ you or not... I _want_ you, Peter. Not because I'm less without you, but because you make life a little more special."

Taking a deep breath, Peter takes her face in his hands, his own face flushed and glowing. "I think when you live with someone day after day, it can be easy to forget who they really are and what they can do. Then when you see it, when you’re reminded of just what they're capable of… it’s a revelation. People see me swinging around skyscrapers and they think I’m pretty special. But it’s not me. It’s you. It’s always been you, MJ."**

She giggles and snorts awkwardly, still too fatigued to suppress her amusement. "Dork. Did you lift that from some nerdy comic book?"

"I might have rehearsed something like that in my head before."

Yawning, MJ starts to feel everything catch up with her—the exhaustion, the relief, and the joy. “Listen, tiger, this is getting too heavy. Let's leave it for some other time, okay? I need some sleep. I'll think about it tomorrow.”*** 

"Sure, yeah. We'll save it for when I finish my self-flagellation," he grins. "Can I stay here tonight? Please? I won’t be annoying, promise, and I won’t make a sound unless you wanna talk—"

She raises an eyebrow. "Just to talk?"

"Yeah, of course, just to talk," replies Peter, nodding enthusiastically.

MJ lifts her chin. "Well, that's disappointing. What if we make up?"

He perks up. "What?"

Her expression remains dispassionate as she tucks her hair behind her ear. " _If_ we make up, I wouldn’t want to just talk all night."

"I’m sure we’ll figure something out," he grins crookedly, reaching for her hand. 

FIN

-*-

EPILOGUE

Balancing three large moving boxes on top of each other with ease, Peter takes the last of their stuff down to the moving truck.

Taking a last look through their little studio apartment, MJ is already nostalgic for the creaking floorboards and the ugly kitchen wall stain from Peter's great dumpling catastrophe. 

The empty space looks smaller without all of their stuff, as if cramming all their clutter, books, and gadgets into the tiny apartment had magnified the limited square footage and proven how much life could fit into these four walls.

Now, every sign of Peter and MJ, together as a unit, is gone, all their belongings separated again and packed away, on the way to their respective campuses.

"Everything's all loaded up, and I've got the last of our mail here," says Peter, coming up behind her. "Mostly junk except for a sweet Bed Bath and Beyond coupon. Oh, and this came for you."

It’s an unwrapped cardboard box accompanied by a simple white card that reads ‘ _Don’t cry for me xoxo.’_ MJ opens the box and holds up the cool silky fabric that was folded between layers of scented tissue paper. It’s the dress Felicia let her borrow and wear out that first time they met.

Grinning, MJ pockets the card and turns around to Peter. "I knew it! See? Told you, Felicia’s not gone."

She loves being right, again.--even though she was only sixty-seven percent sure Felicia was alive and well. "My guess is she's laying low in Argentina—because of the Evita line on the card, and she was drinking Malbec the last time we were in her suite. Maybe she's on a vineyard in Mendoza."

Peter's brows knit in confusion, but when MJ holds the dress up against her chest, his eyes light up in recognition. He grins slyly. "Oh, I remember this dress."

Coming around behind her, Peter reaches his arms around to inspect the dress, his hands accidentally grazing MJ's hip and the side of her breast.

She looks back over her shoulder at him. "How about I put it on and we can, I don't know, have a little house cooling for the apartment?"

"I think things would get too steamy for a house cooling," says Peter, fingering the fabric of the dress and letting his hands wander to her waist. "And what's the point of putting it on if it's coming off immediately after?"

"Doesn't have to come off. You like taking me like that, don't you?" Pushing herself against his crotch, MJ wriggles her hips. "We can do it against the window. Won't be living here anymore, so who cares who sees?"

He swallows thickly, but more out of excitement than hesitance. MJ has always suspected an exhibitionist streak in Peter—after all, his Spider suits hide absolutely nothing of his sculpted body, just his face. She's not sure where her own boldness comes from, though; maybe it's just a by-product of having a near death experience, this newfound hunger for a little adrenaline rush. 

They turn off all the lights in the apartment and let the neon pink and red lights of the bar across the street flood the studio. Bracing herself by the window ledge, MJ bends over and hikes her dress up. One of the straps falls over her shoulder. 

She looks back at Peter and purrs, "What are you waiting for, tiger?"

He groans and grabs her by both hips, and MJ smiles to herself.

Felicia would be proud.

-*-

(Get it? Like spider silk?? Okay, I'll see myself out...)

 _You make my heart spin sorrow into silk,_  
_You make me sleep like a young child with warm milk,_  
_You held me tighter when I pushed you away,_ _  
You turn my sorrow into silk, you turn my sorrow..._

 _I'll make your heart spin sorrow into silk,_  
_I'll stay awake when you can't get to sleep,_  
_I promised myself, if I pushed you away,_  
_I'd turn your sorrow into silk, I'd turn your sorrow…_

_['Silk (Favored Nation remix)'](https://open.spotify.com/track/6uMHuVW3BpSMwPmfSpqgMC?si=hO5z13pbSA-GGde49RoAwA) by Giselle Rosselli_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2 #50 (2003)  
> ** Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #521 (2005)  
> *** Amazing Spider-Man Vol.1 #131 (1974)
> 
> I HOPE YOU ENJOYED READING A 65K WORD *PREQUEL*!!! (Because this is basically   
>  MJ's hero origins backstory)
> 
> Subscribe to the series if you'd like to know when the sequel is out!
> 
> In all seriousness, let me know what you'd like to see in the next fic, smutwise or non-smut! What worked in this one that you'd like to see continue in the next one?
> 
> Comments and kudos help let me know what you like and motivate me to write more 😘
> 
> Say hi to me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/)!


	17. Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First chapter of the sequel is posted! 
> 
> Let me know what you think--does anyone want to read about MJ as a monster girl? 
> 
> xoxo   
> Stay spoopy, kids


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